


What If We Could

by Draconicmaw



Series: Draconicmaw does the genderbending [3]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: But What's New There, Enemies With Benefits, F/M, Fem!Seto, Genderbending, Kaiba is also sexually frustrated, Kaiba is in denial, Lemons and limes galore, Prideshipping, Rule 63, fem!Kaiba
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-13
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:33:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 26,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22687798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Draconicmaw/pseuds/Draconicmaw
Summary: ** "And what if I don't want to be civil?" She asked, strangely breathy and hoping he didn't notice.But he did. His lips parted, light reflected in his darkening eyes. He leaned forward, just slightly, but all she could focus on were his intense wine-colored irises."Then we can settle this like animals," he said, dark and low and rumbling like a bestial purr. **He's supposed to be her competitor -- but Seto Kaiba just can't set aside her attraction for Atem Sennen.(Also called the spiritual successor of No Man Is An Island)
Relationships: Atem/Kaiba Seto, Kaiba Seto/Yami Yuugi, Kaiba Seto/Yami Yuugi | Atem
Series: Draconicmaw does the genderbending [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1629796
Comments: 46
Kudos: 63





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Capsaicin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Capsaicin/gifts).



> This story is brought to you by [ Blue October](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4rK9_x8gjc).
> 
> I threatened someone on tumblr with the words “Don’t even test me; I am *this close* to genderbending Seto Kaiba himself,” and HERE WE ARE. I am a shameless slut for genderbending and no amount of intervention or rehab will save me. (Do I even want to be saved…? Not really. _I’m having too much fun_ 3:>)
> 
> Dedicated to the lovely [Capsaicin](/users/Capsaicin/pseuds/Capsaicin), whose comments and art pieces inspired me to just write whatever the fuck I please and damn the consequences!
> 
> Also, a lot of references to corporate misogyny. If you do not feel like dealing with that shit, you might want to stop here.
> 
> **Side note** I asked the opinions of several of my frequent readers, and the overwhelming majority was that I keep Kaiba's first name as 'Seto' and not change it to something more 'feminine.'

Though perhaps it wasn’t showcased on every media outlet, it was certainly all the buzz in the gilded world of the aristocratic elite. Millennium Enterprises Incorporated had just appointed itself a new CEO. Gossip slithered from every mouth, insubstantial as cobwebs. 

Generally, Seto Kaiba did not deign to acknowledge such inane prattling. But, this time, the topic was of the utmost import to her--

M.E.I. was her top competitor, and every day they threatened to steal the rug from under her perch at the pinnacle of the tech world. A change in leadership could make-or-break their nearly neck-and-neck tie for the top. (She had an infinitesimal lead, but a lead was a lead and they’d have to pry it from her cold, dead fingers.) So she listened to that name alight on lips.

Atem Sennen.

 _“He’s young, like you,”_ and she’d barely bite back on her derisive snarl.

Young like her, yet they were already giving him thrice the respect she _earned_ , crawling and clawing up to the top of the mountain, nails bloodied and face dirtied. And they haven’t even met the bastard yet, and yet Seto Kaiba was still treated like a little girl when she’d been playing the game for over a decade. 

And that’s where Kaiba had her edge. She had _much_ more experience -- she could easily navigate the barbs and nettles of corporate life. She grew from a girl into a woman among the wasteland and the vultures and the hungry jackals, and she knew what many others did not.

 _Atem Sennen_ didn’t stand a fucking chance.

* * *

The rapid clicking of the keyboard tinkled over the electric hum of her office. With no small amount of finality, her pinky slammed onto the ‘enter’ key.

Results bloomed on the screen, and she clicked on an image. She almost bit her tongue.

It was some classy cover to a popular business magazine, and there he was.

Lithe and lean and masculine, almost feline, encased in a sleek black suit. His shoulders were broad but his waist trim and narrow. His skin was bronzed and smooth, his jaw elegant, hair wild and blond and dark, like the mane of a beast. It contrasted against his urbane apparel, a dichotomy that made Kaiba’s mind reel and her heart stutter.

But it was his eyes. Violet and crimson bled together like the resplendent sky of a summer sunset. In that photo, they gleamed, confident, intelligent, regal like a king. A smug, triumphant smile curled those shapely lips and narrowed the focus on that burning red-violet. 

A growl crawled from her chest, and she slammed the laptop closed.

So he was a pretty boy.

He wouldn’t last a goddamn year.

They never did. Young and handsome, with more money than they knew what to do with. They spoiled themselves with fast cars and tittering women and less than a year later they’d be gnawed ragged by drug addiction and alcohol abuse. She’d seen it a million times before, and she was sure she would see it a million times more.

Atem Sennen wasn’t a threat. Or, if he was, he wouldn’t be for long.

* * *

The first time she met him, it was over a phone call.

The phone on her desk pinged, and then her secretary’s voice was ringing out crystal clear in the still air of her office.

“Ms. Kaiba, you have someone on the phone asking for you.”

Kaiba huffed out a breath, flipped a page in the document on her desk.

“He says his name is Atem Sennen, CEO of M.E.I.” Liyana continued. 

For a moment, Kaiba thought her tongue got stuck to the roof of her mouth. “What does he want?”

“Just to talk, apparently.”

A growl rumbled through her. Who did he think he was? _To talk?_ Didn’t he have more important things to be doing? Kaiba sure as hell did. 

She wanted to tell him to fuck off.

But she knew what men like him thought. If she refused confrontation, it was because she was weak, afraid.

But she was neither of those things.

“Put him through,” she commanded, leaning back in her chair and tilting her head to get her hair off her shoulder. 

“Yes, ma’am.”

And then her phone was ringing, shrill and insistent, and she let it wail three times before she finally picked it up. 

“Kaiba,” she greeted gruffly, suddenly painstakingly aware of the sheer _femininity_ of her voice. 

“Ms. Seto Kaiba,” a deep voice rumbled over the receiver, and he sounded so _close_ , and the nerves in her ear tickled and she could feel the hair on the back of her neck stand up and goosebumps raise in a tingling wave all over her body. “It’s Atem Sennen--”

“CEO of Millennium. I know who you are,” Kaiba cut in, blunt. “And it’s just Kaiba.”

He chuckled, rolling and smooth, and Kaiba repressed a shudder. “To the point. Well, Kaiba, you can just call me Atem.”

She grunted. Like fucking hell. He might be able to sway other women with that suaveness, but Kaiba wasn’t so easily impressed. 

“What do you want?” she all but barked, drumming her fingers on her desk. 

“I simply wanted to introduce myself. It doesn’t hurt to know one’s colleagues in their field,” he replied, steady, confident, unruffled by her blatantly terse manner.

“ _Colleagues_ ,” she scoffed. “We’re not _colleagues_. I’m your _competitor_ and I will not hesitate to crush you to dust if you so much as leave me a hint of an opening to do so. You would do well not to underestimate me, Sennen.”

When next he spoke, it was still calm and easy, but that friendly warmth was gone and replaced by cold, hard steel. The abrupt change made Kaiba’s head spin. “If that is how you see it. Though you ought to know that you are not living much of a life if you believe everyone is your enemy.”

She couldn’t hold back her twisted, sardonic laugh. “I’m a woman in corporate America, Sennen. Of course everyone else is my enemy. And how I live my life is none of your damn business. You’re not going to last a damn year if you think everyone is your friend.”

He grunted, and the sound, though brusque, made something tug low in her gut. “I look forward to doing business with you.”

Kaiba huffed and promptly hung up. “ _Like fucking hell_.”

* * *

The first time she saw him in person was at an annual technological convention. 

Kaiba discreetly adjusted her pantsuit. It was classy, elegant, top-of-the-line, cobalt blue, the button-down shirt a crisp white. It complemented her figure, but her _cutthroat businesswoman_ vibe still bled from her every pore. Her white heels were just the right height to give her a few more intimidating inches (not that she very much needed them with her tall frame) without looking totally gaudy.

Because if Kaiba had learned anything in her past ten years, it was that the image she projected was one of the most important parts of her role as CEO of KaibaCorp.

“You’re gonna kill it, big sis,” Mokuba leaned over to whisper with a beaming grin as she stood from her seat. 

“Of course I am,” she said back quietly, gently ruffling his wild black hair before she was stepping up onto the stage. 

Here, she was in her element. If there was one thing Seto Kaiba could do right, it was capturing an audience's attention. With power and confidence, she delivered her speech. 

She was striding across the stage, one arm held up to gesture to the screen, when she saw him.

In the dim of the convention hall, he was leaning back in his seat, one leg primly resting over the other, arms loosely crossed on his chest. Relaxed yet poised. Those eyes were too far away to see clearly, but she _knew_ they were locked on her, assessing her, taking in every single move she made. 

Kaiba nearly faltered, but she pieced it all back together before anyone noticed, and her strong words continued to fall from her lips fluidly. 

She was pissed at herself for nearly slipping up, for being _surprised_ that he was here. Of course _he_ was there. He ran a fucking tech company. 

She managed to end the speech as strongly as she began, and she calmly strode off the stage despite the urge to rush away, away from the spotlight and _away_ from those steady eyes. 

Mokuba raised his hand for a high-five, and she clapped it hard, her teeth gritting even as he whisper-yelled "You did great!"

She sat and took a drink of water to wash down the bitter taste at the back of her throat.

The throbbing in her head suddenly made itself that much more noticeable, and her fingers shook with adrenaline. Her insides tremble and jittered. She took another drink of water.

 _Holy shit_. She hadn't gotten the shakes after a speech in _years_. 

_Don't let that fucker faze you,_ she hissed to herself.

And then his name was announced, and her stomach flipped dangerously and she feared the water she just drank would come back up. 

Those long, slender but powerful legs of his sauntered him up and onto the stage, and with that sleek dark suit of his, Kaiba was suddenly bombarded with the mental image of a prowling black panther, stalking through shadows and forest, a jungle rogue. 

And he walked with all the confident swagger of one. Slinking and swaying, exotic and graceful, fluid but certain as stone. 

He accepted the microphone with one bronzed hand, and, from where she was sitting near the stage, she could see the definition of the tendons and his long, slender fingers. 

Her gut clenched suddenly, her breath caught, and she snapped her head away to stare at her glass of water. 

“I’m sure you have all heard of me,” he said, and his deep voice amplified over the speakers was even more intense than it had been over the phone. Kaiba’s fingers clenched into her pants. “I would like to hope that it has all been good things,” he said, voice thick with humor, and the audience murmured with laughter, “though that much is not guaranteed.”

He launched into his speech, all about his plans for the future of Millennium Enterprises Incorporated, and how he planned to revolutionize the company now that he was at the helm. Kaiba listened intently to these parts. He mentioned momentarily their research into scientific algorithmic software, like Doppler radar and other electronic meteorological tools, and briefly touched on the subject of monitoring tools for factories and laboratories. (Sometimes, though she would hardly admit it to herself and never to anybody else, she found it hard to focus on his words and not just the smooth sound of his voice.)

Kaiba’s eyes narrowed. It sounded like material that encroached too far into her field for comfort. KaibaCorp was known to the public because of its gaming and gaming periphery technologies, but most of their sales were for medical and scientific hard- and software (and, before her coupe, its weapons technology, though those days were long past).

Her lip curled with annoyance, and she hid it behind her glass. The bastard had called her with that facade of friendliness, but the plan had always been to edge KaibaCorp out.

And with M.E.I. close enough behind to feel their breath on her neck, Kaiba feared that they inevitably would.

But she would fight tooth and nail every step of the way. 

She’d gotten this far -- she wasn’t going to go down without one hell of a fight.

* * *

A semi-formal banquet was held for the upper-echelon of convention-attendees later that night. 

Maybe she should have changed out of the pantsuit she had worn for the speech -- many people seemed to have changed their clothing -- but she wasn’t going to put any more effort than was absolutely prudent. Especially since she _abhorred_ these banquets. 

_Especially_ the ones hosted by Maximillion Pegasus. 

“Kaiba darling!” the man in question practically _wailed_ , and Kaiba had to forcibly resist the urge to try and dig his remaining eye out with a salad fork. 

“What the hell do you want, Pegasus?” she gritted out, firmly nudging him aside when he swooped in for a hug.

He made an offended noise, one hand laying on his chest melodramatically. “How cold! I’m wounded. I’ve always seen you as a daughter to me --”

“Thank god I’m _not_.”

“-- so it always hurts me deeply when you reject my affections,” he continued, pouting. 

“If I were your child, I would’ve thrown myself in front of an eighteen-wheeler by now,” she growled, once again pushing him further away when he made to step close and drape his arm over her shoulders. Damn man was like a fucking octopus. 

A dark, rumbling chuckle brought her attention to the person who had accompanied Pegasus to her side.

She froze.

Those sunset eyes sparkled in the dim light of the chandeliers. 

“Oh, don’t be dramatic, my dear,” Pegasus cooed. 

She gave him a sour gaze, swatting his hand away when he went to touch her arm. 

He pursed his lips, but turned to the man waiting patiently before them. “Atem Sennen, as you already know, this is Seto Kaiba, President and CEO of KaibaCorp,” he introduced.

“Yes,” Sennen murmured, stepping closer and offering his hand for a shake. “This is the first we’ve met in person.”

Kaiba glared down at him. Without her heels on, she would have already been four or five inches taller than him, but _with_ them, she towered well over his head, and looking _down_ at him formed a hot bubble of smug satisfaction in her chest. She could’ve just denied him the courtesy, but something in her compelled her hand forward, and soon it was clasped in his. His grip was firm, gentle but unyieldingly confident, and his palms were _hot_ without being sweaty. 

Kaiba suppressed a shiver.

“Wait, ‘in person’? Have you two interacted before?” Pegasus asked, shrilly curious. 

“We’ve spoken over the phone,” Sennen said, withdrawing his hand.

Personally, Kaiba would’ve responded with _It’s none of your damn business, old man_ , but whatever. 

“Oh! Well, I’m going to leave you two here to get better acquainted! Ta-ta for now!” 

Kaiba glared at his retreating back. “Meddling bastard,” she growled. Just what the hell did Pegasus think he was doing? Swooping in to harass her and then dumping this upstart on her, the lousy fucker. 

“You seem awfully fond of him,” Sennen chuckled, thick with irony. 

She glared down at him and ignored how her heart stuttered in her chest to see those resplendent irises affixed so firmly to her. “He’s… too much,” she responded, terse.

“That’s an understatement. Seeing him trying to harass you was like watching a toddler attempt to cuddle a feral cat.” Those lips tilted with a grin, friendly but reserved. 

A hot rush crashed through her, and she tried her damnedest not to stare at the shapely Cupid’s bow of his upper lip. 

He was a sensuous man, but like hell she would let it sway her. 

“I’ll claw his eye out like one, too. He needs to learn what ‘personal boundaries’ are,” she snorted. 

He laughed, quiet but genuine, rolling and smooth and Kaiba’s diaphragm shivered. “I’m sure you would. Shall we find our seats?” He gestured to the room full of round tables. Many people were already seated.

She bristled. “The seats are assigned.”

“Yes, Pegasus informed me that we are at the same table.” His voice was informative and casual.

 _That fucker. I will fucking kill him_.

What the hell did Pegasus think he was pulling?

(Pegasus probably wasn’t _pulling_ anything, but it still felt like the world was conspiring against her, dammit!)

She grunted her response, and she resisted the urge to curl her fingers into fists. Her blood was pumping fast and hard and it made her fingertips numb. 

They silently made their way through the tables until they found one with their little name tents on it. 

Her jaws clenched. 

_Atem Sennen, M.E.I._ and _Seto Kaiba, KC_ were set right next to each other. 

Sennen pulled her chair out for her, and she gritted out a _thank you_ that was wholly insincere, and he seemed to know it and thought it was humorous, evidenced by his laugh.

“What?” she snapped. “What do you expect me to say? _Oh, yes, praise the lord, chivalry isn’t dead._ ‘Chivalry’ was founded on sexist principles and I do not find them appealing.”

He only laughed again, and she felt fire lap at her cheeks. 

“You’re fiery and blunt,” he replied to her sharp gaze when he sat down. “It’s refreshing.” Those red-violet eyes twinkled with amusement. She pressed her lips together and instead watched his graceful hands unwrap his napkin from around his silverware and settle it onto his lap. “I can’t lie, I was sure you were being intentionally unpleasant to me over the phone, but now I realize that’s how you treat just about everybody.”

 _I_ was _being intentionally unpleasant_ , she thought smugly to herself. Everyone except Mokuba and her employees received that treatment, for the most part.

“Well, I find your ingratiating manner equally unpleasant,” she replied.

He arched a dark, fine eyebrow. “Ingratiating? As if I seek approval.”

“Don’t you?” she asked, unwavering from those burning eyes. "Isn't that what this is all about for you? Making allies out of sharks?"

He made a soft sound, perhaps a scoff, or maybe a huff, she wasn't sure. "Making allies and seeking approval aren't necessarily tied to one another. I couldn't give a damn about gaining approval from others -- especially from some of the people in attendance tonight, but there is an advantage in having solid relations with fellow businessmen and -women."

"Hn," she grunted. It was all the same to her, no matter how he argued it. 

He gave another scoffing laugh, "You disagree completely, don't you?"

She met his eyes, hot and sharp and she pretended she couldn't feel it cutting _through_ her as if she were made of butter. "Of course I do."

He rested his elbow on the table, his smooth jaw on his knuckles. Those red-violet eyes seemed unblinking. "And why is that?"

She felt her lip curling into a snarl even as she felt her pulse fluttering in her wrists. "I don't owe you a damn thing, least of all an explanation."

"While that's true, I'm simply trying to have a civil conversation with you," he said, almost calmly if it weren't for this _electricity_ arcing between them.

Something in those eyes of his _smoldered_ , white-hot flecks on dark coal. An answering heat coiled low in her stomach, percolated to the insides of her thighs.

"And what if I don't want to be civil?" She asked, strangely breathy and hoping he didn't notice.

But he _did_. His lips parted, light reflected in his darkening eyes. He leaned forward, just slightly, but all she could focus on were his intense wine-colored irises.

"Then we can settle this like animals," he said, dark and low and _rumbling_ like a bestial purr. 

Her heart was pounding and something in her _thrummed_ in response to his voice, something primal and frightening, something that made her feel like she was about to shiver apart on the insides. Yes, it was something _animal_ , clamoring to be unleashed, panting and hungry. 

This man was dangerous. 

_And she liked it._

The potent exchange between them was suddenly interrupted by voices, close, approaching their table. The contact snapped, and Kaiba shifted her gaze to the people taking their seats as she forced her breath and her heart rate to settle. 

_What the fuck just happened._

Sennen was smiling, greeting the newcomers with a firm handshake.

_What. The. Fuck._

She gave her own nods of acknowledgement, but there was too much jumbled up in her head to focus on the conversations at hand. 

She exhaled slowly, subtly, and it felt like she was breathing out fire. A prickle of sweat teased her skin, and she subtly adjusted her clothing. The glasses of water that were soon set on the tables by waiters were a welcome refreshment. Kaiba took a deep drink, a relief to her parched mouth. She managed to get her composure back under control, though heat still fluttered low in her belly. The conversations of the other high-profile people at the table hadn’t progressed much past the inane, it seemed. Of course, Sennen was novel to the others at the table, including Pegasus (and she found herself surprised that he hadn’t bothered her yet, or perhaps he had and she completely ignored him), so Sennen seemed to be the center of attention.

Kaiba studied him, though she was careful not to stare at the man too long, lest she get caught. But he was perfectly composed, the picture of friendly professionalism. Those hungry eyes and seductive purrs were nowhere to be found. 

Kaiba turned to study her plate as it was set before her. He was just playing with her, trying to psyche her out, get the best of her. She gritted her teeth as she poked at her food with her fork. The bastard. She cursed the heat that still simmered inside her, but, with her ire, it was quickly fading away.

“So, Kaiba,” Sennen began, and she froze and cut her gaze to him. He was staring at her from over the rim of his wine glass. “I saw your brother at the convention earlier. Does he not attend the banquets?”

She felt the corners of her lips tug down, but she forced an impassive face. “No. He likes hearing about the technology, but the socialization bores him.” And he _hates_ the insincere people, and despised how they treated his sister. It was for the best that he stayed in their room for the banquets. 

Sennen gave a knowing nod, and Kaiba narrowed her eyes at him.

A older man across the table -- he was part of the board of directors for some manufacturing company that Industrial Illusions dealt with -- snorted. “You’d think he’d be more invested in the company that he will end up taking over.”

“Mokuba isn’t taking over KaibaCorp,” Kaiba cut in, firm. “He has other aspirations he is pursuing. Besides, when I retire, it would be pointless of him to -- he’ll be old, too.”

“Who will, then?” the man sputtered.

“Whoever I damn well choose,” Kaiba spat. 

“ _You_ will be choosing?” he retorted, and _that tone_ , like he was talking _down_ to her.

Her lip curled into a snarl. “Why, yes. _I_ will be choosing who runs _my_ company. Everyone seems to forget that I’m majority shareholder, so _my_ interests are the ones served when it comes to staffing and profit.”

The man’s face turned beat red, and he opened his mouth to speak again, and Kaiba cut him off.

“This topic is closed for discussion.”

An awkward silence fell over the table, and Pegasus was quick to fill it with a story about his latest escapade to the tropics, but those listening laughed with strained smiles. 

Sennen leaned toward her and said in a low tone -- only to be heard by the two of them, “Understandable that your brother doesn’t attend. I can nearly imagine his frustration. You handled that better than I would have.”

Kaiba cut him a sideways glance. “If it weren’t for the fact that my partnership with Industrial Illusions is incredibly important to my business, I wouldn’t attend, either.”

Sennen hummed, low, resonating, and though he was several inches away, it tickled all the nerves along her spine and in her ear. She cursed her shiver, the way her skin prickled with goosebumps. 

“I’m glad you did,” he said, and the heat was so minuscule, she thought she had mistaken it, but she met those half-lidded eyes and saw how that spark had been rekindled in those sunset depths. 

Then someone said his name and he turned his head, and Kaiba was left there, staring at him, feeling this flutter in her stomach and the arousal in her veins.

Shit. Shit. Shitshitshit.

She fucking hated this Atem Sennen.

* * *

The moonlight gleamed through the patchwork of the forest’s canopy. Night creatures all around shuffled and cried and sang. She could only see silver and black and the dark midnight blue of the sky. But then she looked ahead and she saw them.

Burning, hungry, peering at her from the shadows of a fern. Eyes, red and violet and blinking slowly. Then the ferns shifted, and a black paw, a graceful forelimb, a muscled shoulder -- the animal melted from the shadows that matched its pelt. A black panther, slinking and prowling, shoulders rocking, eyes locked on her. 

She only heard her own fast, frightened breaths as the beast stalked closer to her where she was sprawled on the forest floor. 

It was at her feet, and she felt the breeze of his purring growl against her bare legs, and then it was advancing, more, more, hovering over her, powerful and deadly. She felt its breath on her face, hot and sweet, and stared into those eyes. She shivered and blinked, and then suddenly it was Sennen, sultry and masculine and pressing between her trembling thighs. His shoulders shifted beneath his black suit as he leaned down, eyes like spilt wine or fire lighting the night sky, and he was chuckling.

 _Then we can settle this like animals_.

* * *

She gasped awake, shuddering and fingers clenching into the sheets. Sweat slicked her silk nightclothes to her body and stuck her hair to her face and neck. The heat under the sheet and blanket were stifling, and she kicked them off as she panted into the darkness. But that warmth remained, crawling under skin, stroking down and against her. 

She whimpered, teeth clenching, eyes squeezing shut. But against the black of her eyelids she could only see simmering red eyes, shapely lips parting, a dark grin. 

Those slender hands, the long fingers. 

She gasped again, her hand pressed tight between her shaking knees. 

Those _hot_ hands, on her knees, prying them apart, trim hips settling between her thighs. His sweet breath against her face and neck. A flash of teeth and lips and tongue on her jaw. 

She whimpered again, hand twitching where it was suddenly cupping herself through her silk pajamas. She felt her heat seeping through the cloth. 

A hand in her hair, tugging back. A teasing bite at her throat, and then that purring chuckle. 

“Oh god,” she whispered, her whole body trembling and thrumming.

Her hand slipped up and beneath the waistband.

“S-Sennen…” a hot gasp, “ _Atem_.”

* * *

It was some time after the convention that Kaiba heard from Atem Sennen again.

“Ms. Kaiba,” her secretary called in. “I have another phone call from Atem Sennen.”

Silver moonlight and burning eyes flashed through Kaiba’s mind, and she shuddered in her seat. At his name alone, heat burned within her. 

“Put him through,” she managed, voice stern.

She picked up the phone on the first ring.

“What do you want, Sennen?” she snapped, already breathing harshly.

“Why, hello to you, too,” he chuckled, right into her ear, and the desire flowing through her veins like blood made her want to melt or throw something. One of the two. She wasn’t sure which. “I was calling to make an appointment.”

Kaiba snorted. “You could have done that with my secretary, moron.”

He sighed. “I could have, but then I wouldn’t get to hear you berate me.”

“You freak,” she hissed, but the corner of her lip was threatening to twitch up into a smile. 

Again, that chuckle, and she clenched her fist on her slacks at the way it made her tremble and shake. “You have no idea…” he murmured, or, at least she thought that was what she managed to pick out, but then he was continuing, confident, as though nothing happened. “What times are you free later next week? I would like to discuss business with you.”

Her heart was beating in her throat, and she was surprised that not only could she talk past it, but that her voice was also coming out normally. “And what kind of business would I want with you?”

A hum, rolling in her ear, and her skin prickled with goosebumps. “I have a proposal for you. I believe I have come up with a mutually beneficial arrangement concerning our current positions in the market.”

She rolled her eyes, cursing her hormone-addled brain for inserting innuendos that didn’t exist into his words. “And what benefits are those? I’ve been doing perfectly fine without your help.”

“Why would I divulge these things to you over the phone when I want to meet in person?” he asked, thick with amusement. “And yes, you’ve been doing perfectly fine, but I’ve always had the feeling that you’re the kind of person that is constantly striving for _more_. It’s an incredibly admirable quality.”

She rolled her eyes, though her cheeks were burning up. That silver tongue of his -- he probably spoke to all women like that. “And you’re offering me more?” she asked, more than a little skeptical. 

“Yes.”

She snorted, and flipped through her schedule. “Thursday at eight in the evening. I’m assuming, since you asked, you’re willing to meet in Domino.”

“Of course. I had _Baiser du Soleil_ in mind.”

A French restaurant. “Why?” she asked, suspicious.

“Neutral ground.”

She grunted. “Fine. Don’t make me regret this, Sennen,” she growled.

“I’d never dream of it.”

* * *

She arrived at _Baiser du Soleil_ at 7:55. She handed the valet the keys to her car, and stepped up. The vestibule and lobby were practically empty -- this place was reservation only. It was sumptuous, appealing, warmly-lit. She was striding up to the maitre d when the voice echoed behind her.

“Impeccable timing, Kaiba,” Sennen said, sauntering up to her. He was in another perfectly-fitted black suit, though the jacket was slung over his shoulder and he was left in a silk vest with a blood red button-up beneath it. 

Her mouth dried instantly, watching the black panther of her dreams and her begrudging fantasies waltz right up to her. His polished shoes clicked on the immaculate floor. She rolled her tongue in her mouth, and summoned up the mental facilities to answer in a timely fashion. “Punctuality is a virtue.”

Those sunset eyes scanned her, and she remembered suddenly that she was still wearing her clothes from the office -- a black turtleneck, gray blazer and matching pencil skirt. She bit back the embarrassing feeling of being under-dressed. 

But those reds lingered on the bare expanse of her calves, and a flame burned, low but hot, one wrong move from bursting into a raging inferno. 

But then he was looking away as quickly as he had looked, and he hummed. He brushed past her -- arms grazing -- to speak to the maitre d. “Reservation for Yami.”

Kaiba arched an eyebrow. 

But then they were being led off, to a more secluded section of the restaurant. The furnishings all had the strange balance of modern, clean lines and antique opulence. Kaiba hummed. It was strange, but oddly pleasing. 

“Here you are. Your server will be right with you,” the maitre d informed calmly, and then he was off. 

“Can I pull out your chair for you or will you bite my head off again?” Sennen asked, voice thick with humor.

Kaiba leveled him a hot glare and pulled it out herself. 

He laughed, that rich, genuine sound, and Kaiba’s heart murmured in her chest. He draped his suit jacket on the back of his seat and sat with all the grace of a poised feline. 

Kaiba didn’t bother picking up her menu -- she’d researched the place beforehand and decided her order then. Sennen was flipping through one, and he shot her glance through his thick black lashes. “Have you been here before?”

“No,” she stated simply.

He smirked and shook his head but said nothing further. 

Their waiter was swift to attend to them -- a young woman named Katrina, a delicate, pretty thing, and Kaiba found herself arching an eyebrow when Katrina blushed furiously each time she interacted with Sennen, who retained a professional poise the entire time.

“And would you like any wine with your meal? I certainly recommend the--”

“No wine. Just water for me,” Kaiba said, firmly, menu in her hand, propped up for the taking. 

It seemed it was Sennen’s turn to arch an eyebrow. “I suppose I will have water as well.”

Katrina was scuttling off with their orders.

“I don’t drink on the job, Sennen,” she growled, leaning back in her chair, arms and legs crossed primly. “What business is it that you wanted to discuss?”

Those wine-colored eyes darkened and narrowed, and he regarded her silently as Katrina set their glasses of water down.

When they were once again alone, he parted his shapely lips and spoke. “How much do you know about community ecology, Kaiba?”

She scoffed at him. “And what does that have to do with anything?”

He made no noise, but she saw his muscular shoulders rise with his deep inhale. “When two species occupy the same niche, one of two things happen -- the better species drives the other to extinction, or one adapts to fill a different niche.” He waved a hand languidly. “Take the anoles of the Caribbean islands, for example. For each island, all the anoles on that island share a common ancestor. However, on any particular island, the anoles have adapted to fill different niches to coexist. Some hunt on the forest floor, some hunt in the grass, some hunt on the trunks of the trees, and others yet hunt in the canopy. All organisms that do the same thing -- reptiles that eat the same food and fill the same hole in the ecosystem, and yet they have adapted in such a way that they no longer compete with one another.”

She sighed tightly, eyes narrowing. “What’s your damn point, Sennen?” Though she had her suspicion of just what, and fire was burning in her belly in her throat -- that of annoyance, not of arousal. 

“I’m saying that perhaps we should take a page from the anole’s book. The tech industry is a vast niche -- so vast that one company alone cannot feasibly rule it all.”

She snorted, hands tensing and clenching into her skirt. “So you intend to do this by encroaching on _my_ territory, into the places where _I_ am already developing software and hardware?” she snarled.

He scoffed, rolling his eyes, and her anger flared hotter. “No, I am not encroaching. Our developing products might be in the same fields that KaibaCorp provides for, but our sphere of interest is entirely different.”

Kaiba gritted her teeth. “Then what is the point of this entire fucking thing?” she snapped. “Why are we wasting time discussing this?”

He took a deep breath, nostrils flaring, and an ember of annoyance was sparking in those red-violet eyes. “You seem to enjoy things clearly laid out, so I thought we would discuss solid boundaries and territories. What you and I would like to respectively divvy up so that we are not underfoot of one another.” He arched a dark brow, and his lip twitched before he continued, “Obviously, this clawing and scratching for the top has not benefited either of our companies. We will _both_ get swept under the rug by a dark horse if we continue this utter nonsense.”

Like this, riled and anger barely contained, he reminded Kaiba not of a sleek black panther, but of a massive sable lion, mane wild and roar building in his throat. 

It _excited_ her, this anger, this rage swelling like a sea roughened by a storm. That passion of his stewed and writhed beneath his stoic surface, and she wanted to see it _unfettered_. 

She had thought that Atem Sennen would not be a worthy opponent -- but now she was seeing differently.

Atem Sennen was a challenge she couldn’t wait to tackle.

“If we specialize and centralize, we will both succeed, is what I’m gathering,” she summarized, and paused when they were served their food. 

Sennen nodded, shoulders relaxing the slightest amount. “Exactly. It boils down to a supply and demand thing. One supplier for any particular need increases that supplier’s profit margin.”

She settled her napkin on her lap. 

Seto Kaiba was a prideful person by nature, and liked conceding to no one and nothing -- but he made some excellent points. At some point, it no longer was a matter of pride, but a matter of survival. This could also prevent KaibaCorp from spreading its resources out too thinly, she supposed. 

“Your points are agreeable enough, I suppose,” she admitted at last, carving into her filet mignon.

She didn’t hear it, but she saw his sigh of relief in her peripherals. 

“Just know that if you cross me, I will stomp you into the dirt hard enough that no one need bother digging you a grave,” she warned, cutting her eyes up to him.

His eyes were just as dark, just as intense. “I’d never dream of it.”

She hummed, and they ate in silence. Sennen was graceful in all things he did, and, once again, eating was no exception. Her eyes lingered unwittingly on the way his slender fingers rested on his silverware, the way his lips parted, the clenching and relaxing of his jaw bone as he chewed. 

He took a moment to adjust his black tie, and Kaiba received the barest glimpse of his defined clavicles, and a spot of black _on his skin_ right by his shoulder and almost on the back of his neck, and her gut clenched. 

Ink. He had tattoos. 

The thought of his lean, muscular body inked made heat collect in her belly and between her thighs. 

Wild, rugged, but so elegant and refined. He was a mosaic of dichotomous themes, and it tantalized Kaiba to no end. 

She imagined then, unbuttoning his vest, then that ruby red shirt that paled in comparison to his vivid irises. In her mind, she saw the material fall away, so slowly, revealing that inked, bronzed skin and toned flesh inch by glorious inch. Though he was short and slender, he was so _virile_ , _oozing_ masculine sexuality, enough to make Kaiba salivate at just the thought of him. 

A purring chuckle snapped her to attention, and she realized that she’d been staring at his neck for the entire length of her rather inappropriate internal musings.

Those garnet eyes were dark and hungry, lips tilted into a pleased smirk. The righteous lion was gone and the slinking panther had taken his place.

She’d been caught red-handed.

He patted his mouth with his napkin, but those eyes were still locked on her. There lurked a dark promise in those embers -- pleasure, release, sin. Her thighs rubbed together minutely. 

_What she wouldn’t give…_

And the thought startled her. He was her competitor, and even their little truce didn’t guarantee that he wasn’t her enemy still. _God_ , what would their business associates think? It would be a goddamn nightmare.

 _What they don’t know can’t hurt them…_ some seductive voice whispered into her ear.

Sennen cleared his throat, and she locked eyes with him again. “So, from what I understand, you’ve devoted your life to your company and your brother. Is there some poor man waiting in the wings for the remaining scraps of your attention?” he asked, lifting his glass up for a sip of water, but those eyes remained sharp, piercing into her, as if he were trying to compel her to bare him her soul instead of answer a rather simple -- and inappropriate (though she couldn’t find it in herself to mind) -- question.

“Men only like to _think_ that they want successful women, but, in reality, they find it a threat to their masculinity,” she said, nose wrinkling derisively. “I don’t quite fit most men’s definition of an ideal mate.”

“Most men are missing out, I would think,” he purred, and, if it wasn’t before, it was perfectly obvious now that he was _hitting on her_.

Her breath threatened to quicken to keep up with her fluttering heart, but she managed to keep it under control. “I’m inclined to agree.” She could feel her pulse in her fingertips. “And what about you? Do you have a woman waiting intently for you to return home every night?”

Half-lidded eyes, but they were lit with delight at the reciprocation. “Women who want successful men want the success more than they want the man.”

“Those types are rampant in this line of work,” she replied. 

“I’ve noticed.” He lowered his eyes a moment to his finger that was languidly tracing the rim of his glass. “There is a hotel not too far from here. It’s getting rather late, and I think I would prefer returning home in the light of day tomorrow.” And those eyes were cutting back up and taking Kaiba’s breath away with the sheer _heat_ in them. He was simpering, sitting there in front of her, a challenge in his eyes, one she was more than willing to accept. “You are more familiar with this city than I am. Are those accommodations adequate?”

Her lips parted, and she was hot and breathless and _aching_ . The words were ambiguous, but his _tone_ , his _gaze_ , they made all too clear his intentions.

He was propositioning her. 

He was her competitor -- she was probably just another notch on his bedpost -- she had to go to the office early the next morning -- but the words tumbled out --

“They’re more than adequate,” she breathed. 

“Excellent,” he rumbled, and his lips trembled the slightest bit, and she realized he was _shaking_ , panting a little, too. He was just as eager, just as anticipatory. 

He probably seemed composed to Katrina, but Kaiba could hear the husky undertone to his voice as he paid the bill. 

She watched those slender brown fingers elegantly tuck away his card.

\-- those hands would be _on her body_ , just like she _dreamed_ , just like she _fantasized_ \--

Within the hour, Atem Sennen would be fucking her.

* * *

She followed him to the hotel, waited in her car as he strode up to the front desk. He had that swaggering confidence when he walked, and she let her eyes linger on his fine ass -- those tailored pants were only doing him favors. When, through the windows, she saw him glance over his shoulder and then saunter to the elevator, she swiftly exited her car and locked it up. 

Everything in her was winding up, clenching, hot, so ready, so eager, as she strode through the doors.

Sennen held up five fingers and pointed up before he slipped onto one elevator.

The fifth floor. 

The lobby was relatively busy, so she didn’t receive too many odd stares when she walked straight to another elevator versus to the front desk. 

She wanted to curse and growl when the cab took five minutes to reach the ground floor again, and that several people boarded with her and selected the second and third floors for their destinations. 

Hot, irritable, but she nearly cried with relief when she was storming off the elevator and down the hall.

 _Shit_. 

Which room could he possibly be in? But then she saw it dangling from a knob. A black silk tie, the one Sennen had been wearing. The lock was keycard activated, so she plucked the tie off the knob and knocked. 

The door immediately swung open, and there was Atem Sennen, eagerly beckoning her in. 

She didn’t need to be told twice. 

She wasn’t sure what she was expecting -- no, that’s wrong -- she _knew_ what she was expecting; the door would close and they would pounce on each other, hot and heavy and ready to just _fuck_ after all this unbearable tension. 

But instead he politely held his hand out, though those eyes burned with sensual, carnal intent. 

“Your jacket, Kaiba,” he said, low, rumbling.

She blinked, and slowly took it off. 

He already had his jacket and vest off, the first couple of buttons on his shirt undone. _Yes_ , those collarbones of his were simply mouthwatering, she could already tell, and the barest glimpses of the inked flesh of his shoulder and neck excited her to no end. And his black suspenders accentuated the flatness of his stomach and the breadth of his shoulders. While he hung up her blazer, she took off her shoes and admired the shape of his shoulders from behind, the muscularity of his forearms sticking out of his rolled back sleeves. Strong and feline, rippling with graceful power. 

“Would you like a drink?” he offered lowly, turning back to her, sunset eyes dark and shadowed in the dim light pouring in from further in the hotel room. “I’m hoping you don’t think of yourself as on the job right now,” he added, humorously, eyebrows raising.

“I’d rather not,” she replied. “I still have to drive home. Though I wouldn’t mind water.”

He nodded, understanding, and stalked further into the room, and Kaiba followed after.

The room was a suite -- most of them in this upscale hotel were, and she took a moment to absorb it all before she followed him to the bar. 

He took down two glasses, one with ice water, which he promptly slid to her, and a tumbler of whiskey on ice for himself, which he was quick to nurse. He washed it down with a shot of water, and Kaiba just sipped at her own drink as she regarded him quietly, her elbows on the bartop.

“I’m wound up,” he answered to her silent look. The next part was husky, growling low in his chest, “And I don’t want to rush this.”

A hot bolt pierced her. 

Shit, he was planning on picking her apart piece by piece. 

This wasn’t at all what she was expecting -- it was already promising to be so much better. 

He moved close, closer, and she felt his heat. His scent, clean but musky and _entirely_ masculine, washed her senses, and breathless desire bubbled up in her chest. He was at her side, their shoulders nearly touching. Then fingertips, whole fingers, his palm, his hand cupping her waist, drifting up to her ribs, near her shoulder blade, then dropping down to her lower back. Up, down, again and again. Slow, sensual rubbing over her shirt. 

His breath was on her neck, tinged slightly by the whiskey he had just imbibed. But she didn’t mind much, her head tilting away on instinct to bare her flesh to him.

Hot lips, smooth lips, just the slightest bit damp, mouthed at the tendons. The wet flick of his tongue, and she could hear his breaths in her ear, felt the long blond bits of his hair brush her shoulder. A flash of teeth, and she tensed up for the barest second, her breath stuck in her throat. 

His hand was climbing up her spine, which arched responsively beneath his touch, and then his fingertips were dancing at the nape of her neck. His lips parted from her skin with a wet sound that made her thighs twitch, and she turned her head just slightly to look him in the eyes. They were dark, so dark, shadowed garnets, and his lips were already just the slightest amounts wet and swollen. But he looked _hungry_ , ready to devour his prey. “I’m going to let your hair down,” he rasped. 

“O-Okay,” was all she could manage, and she lifted a hand to set lightly upon his chest. Hot and firm, his pectoral muscle shifted beneath her palm as his arm moved, as his dexterous fingers pulled out her black hair pin. Her brown locks tumbled down over her shoulders, messy with just the slightest amount of wave. The pin clacked onto the counter, and then his hand was in her hair, carding through, and the tresses passed through his fingers easily.

He groaned, low, throaty, and then he grasped, close to her scalp, and the tension was just enough to make her moan. He pulled her closer, and then his hot breath was fluttering over her lips, and those dark, glittering, half-lidded eyes were mere inches from her own. 

Her glass of water was abandoned on the counter when she moved both hands to his chest, and one drifted up to spread and grasp at the side of his neck. The flesh was feverishly warm, and his pulse thundered beneath her fingers. Her knees shook. 

“If you don’t kiss me, Sennen…” she warned, though much of the effect was lost with her breathy tone. 

His chuckle fluttered on her lips, but his grin soon fell away, and his tongue swiped over his lips -- brushing her own -- and then he was tugging her into a kiss. His lips were burning where they were mouthing against hers, and she eagerly responded, met him motion for motion, and then she was tasting a tongue that wasn’t hers, a tongue that was sly but passionate and _ravenous_. 

Her moan of approval drowned against his lips, but she clawed down his clothed chest, then sensually rubbed back up, absorbed the feel of him hot under her palms. A noise rumbled low in his throat, and a hand drifted down, over her lower back, and those long fingers were squeezing at her ass with slow, carnal intent. She gasped, breaking away. Teeth flashed at her lips, and she nuzzled his cheek, then under his jaw to lick and kiss and nip at his hot bronzed flesh. 

He tasted so good -- she wanted to _whimper_. 

She felt his grunt vibrate in his throat, under her tongue and lips, and he squeezed again, tugging her flush against him. “I’d never found pencil skirts even remotely sensual until I saw _this_ ,” he growled, kneading her. “It’d lead any man to sin.”

"You should see your damn pants," she breathed, and she reached down, set her hand on his wrist, and guided it to the zipper on the side of the skirt. She nipped his earlobe, heard him hiss and heard the whine of the zipper, and the tight waist of the skirt loosened and then it was slipping down, but it still caught on the flare of her hips. 

He tugged, fierce and impatient, and then the material was slithering down her legs and pooling at her feet.

And his hot palm was on her bare thigh, _searing_ it, and she gasped as he hiked it up to drag them closer. "And your _legs_ ," he moaned. "They go for _miles_ and I want to map _every_ damn inch of them," and all the while his hand was dragging along the outside of her thigh to hook under her knee and press them even _tighter_ together. His belt buckle was biting into her navel almost painfully, but she felt his _heat,_ his _desire_ , and she rubbed herself on him ecstatically.

He moaned, the hand in her hair wrenching her back roughly. She gasped and arched in his hands. Those red eyes blazed like an inferno.

"How do you want this?" He gritted out, grinding against her, mouth on her neck and devouring her like she'd be his last meal.

She could only huff and gasp, one hand tangling in his ungodly thick hair and the other clawing his suspender off his shoulder. She couldn't think, had barely registered what he had said when his lips were sucking on all the right places on her neck. 

He wrenched her hair again, and his words hissed against her lips, "How do you want me to fuck you?"

Hard and fast and punishing, slow and torturous until they were both at their wit’s end, she didn’t give a damn. As long as it happened, as long as she felt him against her, hot and _hungry_ like this. 

“A-Any way,” she hissed back, “ _every way._ ”

“Insatiable,” he said against her lips, onto her tongue. “Good.”

And he tore away from her, and she nearly stumbled, but he had her by the wrist -- she wondered if he would leave a burning hand print in his wake -- and he was firmly leading her away from the bar and to a door cracked open.

A bedroom. 

He flipped the lights to dim, and he let go of her wrist to unclip his suspenders and shrug them off. 

His nimble fingers went for his buttons, but she caught them and tugged them away.

“I want to do it,” she said, more than a little breathy. 

His hands settled on her waist instead, traced down to her hips and under the hem of her turtleneck as she unbuttoned his shirt. Inch by delicious inch, she bared his toned chest as his hot hands explored her exposed skin. He was sculpted and hot and sleek, and when she smoothed her hands along his shoulders to push his shirt off, she caught glimpses of ink -- hieroglyphs on his ribs, the feathers of a falcon alighting his neck and shoulder as it swooped over his scapula and onto his wondrous collarbone. She melted, moaning, pressing her lips to the black decorating his skin. His hands dropped from her, his silk shirt fluttered to the floor, and she was kissing down, along his inked clavicle, toward his pectoral muscle. Her fingers curled into the waistband of his pants as her tongue flicked over his nipple, and she smirked when the muscle jumped in response and a choked grunt strained in his throat. 

He caught her, yanking her back up, and the furious red of his face made her heart palpitate in her chest. His look was one of pure, unadulterated arousal in its most primal form. 

“Let’s get that damn shirt off,” he croaked, tugging at the hem, and, while she was pulling it over her head, he was clawing her rather utilitarian white panties down her legs, and then suddenly they were both working her bra off. 

His hot hands panted fire on her skin, lips and tongue teasing a breast, and she was wrestling his pants off him. 

“Do you have a condom?” she panted, groping him roughly through his underwear. He was hard and hot under there, and she wanted it bad enough that she could taste her desperation on the back of her tongue. 

“ _Fuck_ ,” he spat, slender hips twitching into her hand, head tipping back, and he looked like something stepping from her darkest dreams, toned and writhing and sinful. “Fucking… somewhere…”

She squeezed, watched his face twist as he fought back a cry, and she pushed his briefs away to take his bare flesh in her hands. “ _Somewhere_ isn’t good enough, Sennen.”

She was actually going to punch him if he didn’t have one.

“Wallet,” he hissed. “There’s one in my wallet --” and he groaned through clenched teeth when her thumb swiped over him. 

“Go get it,” she snapped, and she broke away from him to climb onto the bed.

His padding, rushed footsteps faded away. 

She laid back on the fluffy comforter, and the material seemed scratchy to her sensitive skin.

It had started out as a smolder, there at the bar, but, somewhere along the way, it’d stoked itself into a firestorm, and it threatened to consume her with its white-hot flames. She’d never felt arousal so _potent_ , gnawing and incessant like actual hunger, this hollowness in her stomach as she burned from the inside out. 

In her breathless musings, she hadn’t heard him approach, but then he was there, prowling over her in the dim of the overhead lights. His eyes seemed molten, glowing from within, and she remembered the panther of her dreams, dangerous and imposing, but Sennen was better than any dream, settling between her thighs like this. 

His hands brushed the inside of her knees, and she eagerly spread them wider. He leaned his weight by her shoulders, and, head down, eyes locked with hers, he pushed against her, grinding his whole length against her with each rolling motion of his hips. Wet, slick, he slipped over her most sensitive parts, made her thighs jump and her breath catch in her throat. 

She clawed into his ass, felt the firm muscles bunch and relax as he frotted against her, over and over, rubbing tight circles on her, but no amount of tugging could change his course. 

She keened, head whipping back when he caught against her, and she thought _yes, finally_ but no, no, he was grinding _again_ , and she could come like this -- wet and sliding and _so good_ \-- but she didn’t _want_ to, she _craved_ him, and she scratched at his back, his name a curse gritted from between clenched teeth. He was panting above her, she could feel it on her neck, and then he groaned, and his tongue flicked against her clavicle. 

“ _Fuck me_ ,” she cried, “Fuck me, you _bastard_.”

He caught again, _right there_ , and she tried bucking but suddenly he was pinning her hips down, and he _lunged_ , and he was piercing her. 

Her head whipped back, lips parted on a silent cry that ended in choking, panting breaths. 

Feverish and hard, his hips pumped against hers, and it felt like lightning striking dry brush and setting a blaze the likes of which she had never before experienced. He was grunting with each fierce thrust, and it was making her melt and writhe where she was pinned underneath him. Everything in her was rippling in response to him, to those eyes that glared down ferociously as he fucked her with all the intensity of a supercell storm. She grasped at him, but her hands slipped on his slick muscles, so she tore at the blankets instead.

She was close -- she could _taste_ it -- but then he pulled out and he was _grinding again_ , but so much rougher, and she shuddered as her orgasm tore through her, and she choked on her keening moan when he was fucking her again, riding her through it.

\-- she’d never felt anything like this -- her thighs were cramping and she was loving every second of it --

And he was disengaging from her _again_ , and he whirled her onto her stomach, a fist in her hair to yank her ear up to his lips.

_“I’m hardly done with you.”_

* * *

She supposed she didn’t _suddenly_ notice it -- it rose with her from the depths of her slumber. This ache, deep and throbbing between her thighs. It _hurt_ but it was so pleasant when combined with the languid haze that was cloaking the rest of her body. She shifted, groaning and sighing, but that dull pain followed. Distantly, she heard feet padding, and then creaking. 

Another sleepy huff, and she finally allowed her eyes to crack open. Dim, early morning light filtered where it could from closed curtains. Her brows furrowed at the unfamiliar surroundings.

And then it hit her like a runaway freight train. 

She jolted up, despite the crying protest in her aching body. 

_She was still in his hotel room_. 

She hadn’t meant to stay the night!

Groaning angrily to herself, she pressed a hand to her face. 

“Good morning,” that deep voice purred, and even still she was helpless to the shiver that washed over her. 

She looked over her shoulder, her disheveled hair brushing her cheek. 

Atem Sennen was standing there, leaning against the door jamb to the bathroom, arms crossed languidly over his chest. That bronzed flesh was glistening from a recent shower. And, even though he had used that wonderful body of his to pleasure her ten ways to insanity the night before, she still couldn’t help but _ogle_ him. 

She wanted to whimper. It just wasn’t fair for one person to be _that_ attractive. 

He chuckled, head tilting, damp blond bangs brushing his shoulder, over the beady falcon eye that stared at Kaiba judgmentally. “I trust you slept well.”

She swallowed dryly. “I hadn’t wanted to stay the night.”

“I know,” he replied, straightening, arms falling to his sides, and he was sauntering closer with that naked, wet body of his. “But you seemed so tired last night, I couldn’t bear to wake you when you fell asleep.”

She looked away from those glowing red eyes, frowned towards the windows. She caught sight of a clock on the nightstand. It was still fairly early in the morning. She would have time to drive back home and get a change of clothes before returning to the office. 

She wanted to laugh and she wanted to scream. Last night felt like a dream. A hazy, wonderful dream. She could hardly believe that it had happened, but here the evidence was before her. He had but to flutter his eyelashes and ask nicely and she had gone to a hotel with him and fucked for the better half of the evening. She _knew_ she was prone to acting impulsively, and she couldn’t even blame this on intoxication.

And she didn’t want to.

No, she wanted it to happen again. And again. And _again_. 

His voice was unnervingly close, “Don’t tell me you regret this.” Sharp and stern, but something wavered in that strong tone; however, when she turned her head to meet his eyes, there was nothing but stoicism.

“No, I don’t regret it. I don’t tend to do things that I will regret,” she replied. 

“Ah, do you think you are one of impeccable judgment?” he asked, voice thick with humor.

“It’s as simple as not lingering on the past or obsessing over ‘what if’.”

He hummed. “A good policy.”

“I’ve always thought so.” She slid to the edge of the bed and carefully stood. Her knees wobbled threateningly, but she managed to stay upright. 

Another hum, and she looked at him. He was scanning her slowly. “Do you feel all right?”

She snorted. “You’ll have to try a lot harder to incapacitate me.”

A laugh, genuine but dark. “Is that a challenge, Kaiba?”

She only met his eyes silently and paused for several seconds, and then she strode past him -- her thighs aching deliciously all the while -- to the bathroom. Her gut clenched at his clean, masculine scent as she brushed close by him.

Another laugh of his, but she ignored him in favor of showering. 

He seemed to go about his own business, and he stopped in the bathroom several times in various states of dress to do something or other. She would eye his distorted form through the bubbled glass with her peripheral vision each time. 

The water was deliciously hot, and she felt the sweat and the grime of their vigorous night wash off her skin and down the drain. But evidence of him still remained -- bruises on her thighs and hips from his fingers, a few hickies on her chest -- she was sure there were more on her neck and back. Her nipples were red and sore, and a phantom sensation of teeth flashed across them. 

She rinsed the hotel shampoo out of her hair. What an animal. 

It wasn't too long before she was stepping out, and she shivered when the relatively cool air of the bedroom washed over her wet skin. A towel was set out for her, soft and white and plush. 

Naked and mostly dry save for her hair, which she was still gently toweling, she went out to pick up her scattered clothing. 

But it was all on the bed, set neatly for her. 

Sennen was sitting in one of the bedroom chairs. He was dressed, vest and jacket laid on the arm of the chair. 

_Mm_ , he looked damn good in those suspenders.

He was silently eyeing her as she dressed, and it was unnerving, made her feel self-conscious, even though he had seen her in the most undignified state no more than eight hours before. Her hair clip was there, too, but she just tucked it into the pocket of her blazer. She wasn't going to put it in when her hair was still wet. 

Fully dressed, she looked back up at him.

Yes, those wine-colored eyes were still locked on her. Dark, half-lidded. Ravenous. 

"You are a gorgeous woman," he murmured, fingers absentmindedly rubbing the material of the chair. 

She hummed, turning away and running her fingers through her hair to untangle it. Her cheeks were hot. She cursed herself. She _knew_ she was beautiful, but hearing him breathe it like it was a secret for them to share… She tried to settle her fluttering heart.

A desk sat in the corner of the room, and, sure enough, there was a pad of stationary and a pen in the first drawer. She hurriedly scribbled and tore the page off.

She was storming out, and he stood there, by the doorway, and she slammed the piece of paper into his chest. 

"My personal cell number. Stop bothering my damn secretary."

She walked away before she could see the bright grin that cut across his stoic face.

* * *

Her phone rang. Not her desk phone. Her cell phone in her pocket.

She jumped, startled, a little worried, expecting to see Mokuba calling her --

\-- but no. It was an unknown number. Her fingertips tingled with her racing pulse.

There was only one person it could be.

“Kaiba,” she greeted, lifting the phone to her ear as her heart pounded in her throat.

That purring chuckle. Her thighs tensed. “When do you have availabilities this next week or so?”

She licked her dry lips. It’d been two weeks since their tryst, and she was itching for it. She’d lay in bed and sigh, and then gasp when she would try to please herself with her hands, with her toys, with whatever she thought could quench the thirst. But it was shallow relief and couldn’t sate her hunger for that sensuous man between her legs. 

“Is this for business or…?”

“It’s purely for pleasure,” he replied, and the way that deep voice rolled over the speaker had her shivering in her seat. 

She didn’t bother flipping through her schedule. “You tell me, then,” her voice was breathy.

_Any time, any place, I’ll be there._

* * *

“S-Sennen,” she gasped. His dexterous fingers were right there, swirling and rolling against her wet flesh. It was good, _he_ was good, but it wasn’t enough, and she nudged her hips back against him. 

His lips were on her neck, bared by her head tilted to the side, his hand tangled hard in her hair. He only hummed, tongue flicking out, lewdly swiping up her neck. His fingers didn’t stop, didn’t slow, didn’t hasten, only continued a teasing pace on her. 

“ _Sennen_ ,” and this time it was a growl, and she lurched back against him, felt his flesh hot and hard against her ass.

His breath rushed against her, cooling the saliva staining her throat, but he simply tightened his hand in her hair threateningly -- she moaned, _mewled_. He kept touching her languidly. 

“Are you going to fuck me or not?” she practically cried, bucking, trying to get him to go _inside already._

His words came through gritted teeth, “Sex isn’t all about penetration, you realize. Most women aren’t satisfied by penetration alone.”

She snarled hotly, fighting against his hold to turn her head and bite his ear. “Well, _I_ am not most women and I want you to _fuck me_ , idiot!”

The growl that ripped from him in response resonated through her nerves and down to her bones, and then he was shoving her forward onto her hands and knees. He knocked her thighs apart, and his hands were grasping hard onto her hips and he was ruthlessly piercing her where she wanted it so badly. Her ecstatic cry rang and echoed in her ears. He was thrusting and humping, yanking her back onto him with ferocity.

“There, _happy now_?” he grunted, and she could imagine his jaws clenched and his eyes burning as he fucked her.

Her head whipped back, her spine arching as she tried to rock back onto him. She panted and gasped, felt her hair slipping over her shoulders and across her back messily.

“ _Harder_ ,” she mewled, and he snarled, and his hand was in her hair and tugging viciously and he was fucking her with fervor unmatched. 

The water was rising, the cracks snaked through concrete. The dam was fit to burst.

He gripped her hard, gave three deep, intense thrusts that broke the unrelenting assault, and then he was pounding her again. 

“ _Make me come, c’mon, c’mon,_ ” she was chanting it, loud and lewd.

“Gonna give it to you, fuck you, _fuck_ you hard,” he was growling in her ear, his fingers like brands on her hips. “Come for me,” it rumbled against the back of her neck, and he yanked her back _hard_ , making her lips stretch wider on a silent keen, and then those fingers were touching her _right there_ and she shattered under him. 

Shaking and shivering, engulfed in heat, mewling in over-stimulation as his hips fluttered and he came, grunting so erotically all the while.

Her cheek was pressed to the blankets, and she gasped into them, and she felt his sweaty forehead land against her back. His hair tickled her skin.

“Goddamn,” he croaked. “ _Goddamn_. I…” A huffing chuckle against her spine. “I try to drag it out and make it last and you just blow it all to hell every single time.”

She was shaking, every part of her, inside and out. She couldn’t imagine her state if he’d picked her apart like he’d planned. But he was pulling out, and she whimpered, sensitive. He flipped her onto her back, and his hot, trembling lips touched her neck, then her chin, and then those beautiful eyes were hovering so close to her own.

“I guess I’ll have to start right from the beginning again.”

* * *

It started as once every couple of weeks. They’d meet up, discreet, entering and leaving the hotels -- never the same one -- at different times. Sometimes it was a quick, hard fuck before one of them had to leave -- they were both busy people. But sometimes they would go all night, or for as much of it as they could, until he was physically unable or her eyes could no longer stay open. And they’d sleep, naked and disheveled, and come morning if they weren’t in a hurry he’d fuck her in the shower, or tongue her right there as she woke, or she’d kneel and suck him dry as he nursed his coffee. Sometimes all three of these occurred in the same morning.

Yes, this would happen every couple of weeks, and the wait would make them hungry and eager and pent-up. 

But then it grew more frequent. Every other week, _every_ week, every couple of _days_. 

“Last night wasn’t enough,” he said, low and sultry, making her nerves stand on end. They’d just met the night before -- a quickie, before he had to go for a late night Skype meeting with a foreign manufacturing company.

 _It wasn’t_ , she silently agreed. “And what are your plans to fix it?”

He hummed, and then the plan was formed. They were going to meet two days from now. She’d have to drive two hours north to see him where he’d be for business that day, and two hours back to get to the office on time the next morning.

But she didn’t fucking care. She’d meet him on top of a fucking mountain if she had to.

She hung up the phone, hot and bothered after he had called her and tantalized her with that seductive voice of his.

Hand pressed to her face, she realized two things;

One: This was getting out of hand, faster than she thought possible. He was a drug she hadn’t thought would affect her, but now she was craving him, all day, every day. She wondered if she would get so high and then the bubble would pop and she would come crashing back down in flames. 

Two; she couldn’t bring herself to care about the consequences.

Not when every moment felt so damn right.


	2. A Last Chance (For a First Dance)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seto: S-Sennen--  
> Atem: Y’all hear something?  
> ~~  
> Draconicmaw: I mean, gotta have a bathroom scene. That’s like, I don't know, mandatory or something…?  
> ~~  
> Also Atem: ur hair purdy lady  
> ~~  
> That’s it. That’s the chapter. JK, JK. This has been sitting two-thirds finished in my docs for… pffffft. Like three months now. I got stuck at a certain point, but I decided to buckle down and plow through and here we are! (I am secretly sweating nervously because I am not so sure about this, but I also don’t want to rewrite a 15,000 word chapter ;^-^)  
> Either way, I hope you enjoy!
> 
> Also, beautiful artwork by Capsaicin T-T I actually bawled by eyes out, thanks for asking. This is for you, Enabling Fiend! I'm sorry it's so late!  
> 

The reservation was under ‘Yami,’ and she’d made it into the place rather easily. She looked at her watch as the elevator climbed up. There was still going to be an hour or so before he would arrive. 

She set her overnight bag on the bed and scoped out the accommodations. 

She eyed the spacious bathtub critically. She felt stiff and sore from the long drive, and a piping hot bath would help soothe the tension built up from a hard day at work. 

Her work clothes were soon folded on the counter, and she was submerged in steaming, bubbling water. Dermatologists said that hot water was bad for the skin, but Kaiba couldn’t find it in herself to give two shits. She deserved to pamper herself, dammit!

She leaned her head back, sighed as the heat seeped into her bones. The aches and pains of sitting all day faded away with the constant warmth, and soon she was practically melted and boneless amongst the sumptuous bubbling jets. She slowly slid down, dunked her head in, and lifted back up, her brown hair now a wet curtain that she parted with a small smile. 

She ran her fingers through the dripping tresses, and she thought about Sennen.

He loved her hair. Loved to grab and pull, card and stroke. His first action each time they saw each other was to pluck her pins out and let the locks tumble down, and he’d moan breathlessly each time. It was an obsession of his, one that she fully endorsed. 

So she watched the strands float about on the current from the jets, and she thought about Sennen in the bathtub with her. Perhaps prowling above, her black panther ready to devour her. He’d hunker down and lift her up, and her legs would wrap around him and slip on the wet skin of his lower back. His fingers would tangle in her hair, and he’d press breathy kisses to her lips as he did that infernal _grinding_ (because as much as she hated to admit it, she _loved_ _it_ when he teased her like that). But _eventually_ he’d take her, and the water would surge with each thrust, slow but rough, her back arching and one hand bracing on the edge of the tub by her head and the other on his wet, inked shoulder. 

Or maybe she’d straddle him, pressed chest-to-chest, her hands on his shoulders and chest as she rode him. But his hands would be on her hips the whole time, and he’d guide her and keep her from going too fast and she’d just savor the hot water and the way he filled every inch of her. And she’d tilt her head down and let her hair brush over his torso and his cheeks because he _always_ really liked _that_. 

Or _maybe_ she’d be on his lap, but in the other direction, her back to his front, her thighs stretched over his own. He’d touch her with those dexterous fingers, and each thrust would be short and tight and would make her whimper as he pressed his cheek to her neck and nuzzled her sensually. And one hand would be on her breast, or on her waist, or rubbing her side in that sultry way of his. And even though in other positions he was touching her in greater capacity, _that_ one felt as though he was utterly surrounding her, filling her senses with him until nothing else remained. 

She sighed tightly, and the warmth between her thighs had nothing to do with the hot water swirling around her.

“That bastard…” she whimpered. He had _no right_. No right to reduce her to a melting, aroused mess when he wasn’t even present.

Her hand had already drifted between her knees, and she slowly stroked her inner thigh beneath the water. 

That _bastard_. 

Just a light brush of her fingertips, but it was enough to make her lips drop open.

 _That bastard_. 

Firmer, making her thigh muscle twitch. She panted hotly. A little wouldn’t hurt, would it? A little touching… A slow circle. She bit her lip. Teasing around that most sensitive part, just like _he_ would do it. He knew how to play her body, knew what strings to pluck to make her nerves sing with pleasure. She’d learned so much about her body from all of their times together. For example, if she --

She gasped, arching, one hand whipping back to grab the edge of the tub for support. 

_God yes_ , right there, just like that.

She turned her head, whimpered into her bicep. It was good, but it wasn’t _enough_. Her own touch wasn’t as intense as his, as one of her favorite vibrating toys. She blinked hazily up, and she froze. 

_Oh_. 

A… detachable auxiliary showerhead. The hose looked long, too.

Her cheeks were flushed, more than from the heat or even her mounting arousal. But she was positively throbbing, _aching_. 

No one would know, she reasoned. She’d get it done and no one would be the wiser. If anything, making herself come before Sennen arrived was a very reasonable plan -- it’d take the edge off her desperation, and Sennen wouldn’t bitch at her if she wasn’t trying to rush him into just _fucking her_ already (like he would say she normally does).

There were only perks, and _no one would know_.

She checked the bath’s current water level. If she was quick and she monitored it in the meantime, she wouldn’t have to worry about overflow. She carefully rose to her knees, detached the auxiliary showerhead. She turned on the faucet, adjusted the temperature, and cranked the settings until it was one focussed spray.

Hot water, high pressure. She shuddered, anticipatory, reclining again, and cautiously tugging the head under the water.

The hose was long enough, and then some. 

The edges of that pulsing, fluttering stream touched her, and she immediately arched and gasped. 

Oh god. 

Down, right there. She bucked, lips dropping open. 

It was so intense -- almost painful -- but she _loved it._

Up, down stroking herself with it, her head fell back against the edge of the tub and her hips churned of their own accord. But she couldn’t maintain a stable position with her legs -- they kept slipping when she moved, and she’d have to readjust and it was just so _frustrating_ , and then she finally growled and slung a leg up and out, hooking over the lip of the bathtub. Leverage, and she was moving it faster, panting mewls on her lips, and it was so _good_ , she was getting _close_ , and she imagined Atem there with her, his gorgeous body all inked and wet, eyes dark but burning all the same. His lips and his hands and his _voice_ \--

But she was so distracted, distracted by the pleasure and her thoughts, her hearing obscured by the bubbling jets and her own mewling cries and she didn’t hear, didn’t notice --

\-- didn’t notice the door opening and closing, Sennen’s calling out for her, or the figure now lingering in the doorway to the bathroom. 

But then suddenly a man’s silhouette was hovering over her, and a bronzed arm was plunging into the frothing water, and a hand was closing over hers, and then the stream was _right there_ , pulsing against where she was most sensitive. She thrashed, crying out lewdly, and her tearful gaze was locked with those fiery eyes as she came. 

She writhed and mewled, wet hands scrambling at his shirt and her toes curling to the point of cramps as he _kept it right there_ , then stroked over her with the hot spray. 

“Look at you,” he growled. “ _Look_ at you.”

“ _S-Sennen_ ,” she choked, convulsing fingers curling around his wrist, but she was powerless, absolutely vulnerable as he kept that hot, fluttering pressure on her. Hips bucking and churning restlessly, trying to _get away_ and get _more_ , and she could swear her eyes would be permanently rolled into the back of her skull at this rate.

“You couldn’t even wait for me,” he hissed. “I arrive and you’re already ahead of the game.” 

She cried again, and she wasn’t sure if it was her previous orgasm lingering or a new one building as her thigh muscles spasmed. 

“So impatient.” And his other hand was in her wet hair, _yanking_ it, just like how they both liked it. “So horny.” He was leaning over the tub, his tie falling in, the tip soaked, and his teeth were on her neck, on her ear. “C’mon, I know how greedy you are. Come for me again.”

 _Fuck,_ it was definitely a _new_ orgasm building, and then it wasn’t building anymore, it was _there_ , right there when he used the hand in her hair to arch her spine, her breasts jutting from the roiling water, so he could lewdly tongue her wet nipple.

She wasn’t sure what she was mewling -- maybe praises or curses, maybe his name -- but she felt her throat _ache_ with it. Gentle, slow, he stroked it out of her, his tongue still rolling over her, and he moved the showerhead away, and she finally slumped in relief, chest heaving with each breath. He stroked her bangs, ran this thumb tenderly down her cheek, and he stood, turning off the faucet and replacing the showerhead. 

She blinked up hazily at him. His right sleeve, rolled up, was still soaked up to mid-bicep, and the tip of his red tie left a growing wet spot on his dark gray shirt. 

Her cheeks burned, and she averted her eyes when he turned to look down at her. 

_No one would know_.

Well, that got shot to hell.

He was kneeling back at eye level for her, and his hand reached out, cupped her cheek. She met his eyes. They were molten, hot with desire but somehow still so soft (her throat tightened), and no flicker of judgment could be found in those sunset depths.

“That was unexpected, but very, _very_ welcomed,” he said, husky.

“Welcomed?” she managed to croak through her panting breaths.

He chuckled, eyes crinkling in a way that made her heart palpitate, and his thumb stroked over her cheekbone. “Of course. I come in, hear the woman I am _extraordinarily_ attracted to crying my name, and find her pleasuring herself, wet and naked in the bathtub. What man _wouldn’t_ welcome that?” he purred.

Her cheeks grew hotter. She didn’t explicitly recall crying his name before he came in, but she didn’t doubt it for one moment. She’d been so delirious -- she could’ve been speaking in tongues and she wouldn’t have realized it.

But which name? she wondered with no small amount of horror. She called him Sennen to his face, but when she was alone...

“It’s embarrassing,” she murmured, retracting her shivering leg back into the tub. But she curled closer to him, closed her eyes when he stroked through her wet hair.

“Don’t be embarrassed,” he replied, thumbing her lower lip, and he cupped his fingers just behind her ears. “A majority of adult people masturbate, and I’m sure you’re not the first woman to discover detachable showerheads.” His lips ghosted over hers, and she could feel the huff of his groan against her damp face. “In fact, I find the idea of you masturbating in any capacity to be incredibly arousing, sensual, even. Such a collected, strong woman, touching herself and losing herself in pleasure.” His lips touched just under her jaw, and then he was sucking at her earlobe. The breaths passing through his nose tickled and titillated her. And then he was speaking again, and his deep voice so close to her ear jolted her nerves. “How do you normally do it?”

The word fell, unbidden from her lips, compelled out of her by his seductive voice. “Vibrator.”

A grunt, erotic, aroused. “Wonderful. Perhaps you’ll give me another show sometime,” he whispered, nuzzling her cheek. “I promise to return the favor.”

She was still trembling from her last orgasm, but that didn’t stop a bolt of arousal from piercing through her. _Okay then,_ she understood his point -- the thought of watching him touch himself to completion was enough to make her thighs shake and everything in her ache with desire.

Atem Sennen was turning her into a complete pervert. 

“Come, let’s get you out of this water. I’m sure you’re pruning.”

She bit back her pout. More adventures in bathtub sex would have to wait for another time. 

He was pulling back, switching off the jets, flipping the switch for the drain plug. 

She sighed when the wonderful hot water drained away; she was not looking forward to the relatively cool air on her body. But Sennen was there, helping her out of the tub when her legs shook, and then he was wrapping her in a plush towel. Gentle strokes, tender hands, he dried her off, pampering her with nearly massage-like kneading.

And then he got to her hair, and she tilted her head down to give him better access. She hummed at the attention to her scalp. She watched him from behind her dangling wet bangs. 

Heat simmered in his eyes -- no doubt still aroused, but he seemed entirely consumed with his self-prescribed task. Kaiba felt her cheeks get hot again. 

He sighed, taking the towel away from her hair to instead run his fingers through it. It was dark with water, but it still had a glossy shine. She’d always liked her long hair -- she’d cut it short in high school once and it wasn’t her favorite thing ever -- but the way he treated it, like it was something to be endlessly admired, made her _cherish_ it. 

“Would you like a robe?” he asked quietly, thumb stroking her cheek. “Assuming you do not want to put your clothes back on, that is.”

“A robe is fine,” she said back, so low it was practically a whisper. 

So he plucked a robe from the linen shelf, and then she was wrapped up in the fluffy material. She rubbed her cheek on it. Was he not planning on having sex with her? What purpose would it serve for her to wear a robe?

His hand settled around her waist, and he gently nudged her forward. “I hope you’re hungry, because I brought dinner.”

Oh. 

“I could eat,” she replied. Now that the shaking of her rather violent orgasms was passing, a languid warmth was settling over her, and with it a faint stirring of her appetite. Sennen -- as always, it seemed -- had the most impeccable timing. 

“Good, good.” and they padded out of the bathroom, across the living space to the kitchenette. He slid a takeout box to her. “It should still be warm.”

And it was. It was something light on the stomach, something that wouldn’t hinder her when they proceeded again to more… _strenuous_ activities. 

“Wine?” he offered. It was a small complimentary bottle from the hotel itself.

“... Yes.” And she took a sip. It wasn’t half bad. 

And then they were finished, and he invited her to sit with him on the couch. 

She once again felt puzzled at his behavior, but, when he held her close, his hands amorously stroking her body over the robe, she breathed a quiet sigh of relief. He breathed deeply where he was nuzzling her neck, and then he was cupping her breast and kneading softly.

She petted his chest, tugged loose his tie, then cupped the front of his pants and rubbed gently. His hips hitched into her touch, and he moaned raggedly against the flesh of her throat. She could feel his heat, even through the layers of cloth separating their skin. 

“You’re so hard,” she breathed, right into his ear as his hand pushed at the hem of the robe to touch her bare thigh.

“Need I remind you what I walked into this evening?” he said, thick with humor and desire. “You sounded like something straight from a wet dream. I’ll be thinking about it years from now and touch myself every single time.”

Fire burst on her cheeks. 

But he wasn’t done yet. “You should’ve seen yourself.” He was grinding against her hand and stroking and kneading at her thighs and ass. “Wet and arching and fucking yourself with that showerhead.” He cursed, his breath hot and sharp against her jaw, and then his tongue flicked out, padded wetly up to her ear. “Utterly delicious. I want to see it over and over again.”

She panted hotly, squeezed him meaningfully. “I was surprised you didn’t pounce on me.”

His groan was short and low but entirely arousing, and he leaned closer, and she was laying back on the couch. Sennen kneeled between her legs, and the robe was sliding down to bunch at her hips. 

“What can I say?” he murmured with a breathless grin. “I enjoy building the anticipation.” He sensually massaged her outer thighs.

She fumbled with his belt buckle and, despite her trembling fingers, managed to wrestle the black leather from his body. And then it was gone from her grasp -- she’d mindlessly flung it somewhere. “You mean you’re a goddamn tease,” she breathed against his jaw.

He turned his head, and their lips met, and his tongue slipped into her mouth. He kissed her so slowly, so sensually, like he was savoring every taste of her. One of his hands was propped on the arm of the couch above her head, the other periodically squeezing at her thigh, making her grind up against him as her body instinctively urged him to touch elsewhere. Her nails scratched gently at the material of his shirt, and then she gripped his tie to pull him more firmly against her lips. 

“Tease,” she whispered hotly when he languidly rolled his hips against her in response.

He moved his head to mouth at her ear, and then his breath wafted and cooled the saliva he left behind. “Let’s play a game, Kaiba.”

Her brain didn’t even process the statement before she was nodding.

* * *

The robe was spread out around her, below her on the couch. Her flesh still felt the fuzzy afterglow of her hot bath, but that warmth was building into a simmering heat. Sennen stoked it with each touch, gentle but firm on her naked body. His hungry lips mouthing down her sternum, his hand grasping tenderly at her sensitive breast before trailing down to skim at her waist and settle for such a small amount of time at her hip. 

She arched under him, her own fingers trying to find purchase on his torso, bared and naked and almost golden in the warm light, but he kept moving, moving to observe her from a new angle, to brush against a different part of her body, to kiss at an untouched patch of flesh.

Each touch sizzled under her skin, and she felt sweat bead up at the back of her neck as she exhaled hotly. 

He was kissing at her navel, his hands stroking at her calves that flexed in his grasp. His tongue was electric for that brief moment that it was swiping at her skin. She gasped, arching a little, and he was propping himself up to look at her.

Those eyes were so dark they looked crimson, and the dim light reflected off of them. 

“Gorgeous,” he rumbled, and his hand touched her hot cheek, slid down to her throat -- where he squeezed with just the slightest amount of sensual danger -- and then down to her collarbone, smoothing along her sternum and between her breasts, over her heaving stomach. His palm veered to the side, to her hip, then her upper inner thigh. 

His thumb brushed _there_ , just a teasing touch, but her breath hitched and her legs parted wider anyway. 

“Mm, good. I like it when you’re like this, all pliant and willing, letting me take my sweet time with you.” He leaned down to kiss just above his fingers on her hip. His hair brushed her skin and tickled her. He hunkered lower, lips hovering _right there_. She could feel his breath.

But her eyes were on his shifting shoulder. Each twitch made the ink ripple, like the falcon perched there was moving, alive, watching her as she panted. “I…” she began, and licked her dry lips. “I fucking knew you were going to say something about it.” Her leg curled around him, foot brushing down his side, along black hieroglyphs until her toes clenched into the waistband of the pants he was still wearing. 

He chuckled, and the falcon laughed with him. The rush of his breath made her gasp and arch. 

“You’re a very demanding woman who knows what she wants, and it’s no different in bed.” His tongue trailed up, a shallow, slow touch that made her eyebrows furrow hard and made her arch more, but he managed to keep the same amount of pressure on her. “It turns me on,” he admitted, and his lips nipped gently at her. Her leg jerked, and she lost her grip on his pants. “When you hiss and spit at me to fuck you. My fierce dragoness.” A firmer lick, a twirl of a pointed tongue, and she mewled. “But I enjoy this, too.” Then flat, rubbing, wet, and she spasmed, hands sinking into his hair. “It’s a _treat_ .” A hot, breathy kiss, and she whimpered. “Something that I _savor_.”

“S-Sennen,” she choked, and every breath felt like fire. With her two intense orgasms earlier that night, being wound up like this again was nearly painful. It was so overwhelming, so raw, it made her nervous, nearly afraid of what he might wring from her body next. It was something that had happened with him before, but it felt so new and frightening each time. 

He hummed, displeased, and he pulled away. She cried in protest, wrapped her legs tight around him, but he easily pinned her trembling thighs down. 

“That’s not what you were moaning earlier, over and over, when I came in,” he leaned down, touched her face, his thumb at her lip, and before she knew it, she was kissing it, sucking it, tasting the barest hint of herself on him. Those eyes were dark, so dark, as they stared, half-lidded. “But you know what I want now.”

 _“Please,”_ she mewled around his thumb, arching up, but he gently pushed her back down. 

“As nice as that is,” he husked, “You know that’s not what I meant.”

Her hands were shaky, stuttering over his hot body, but she hoped the petting would coax him, _convince him_ to give her what they both wanted. He purred, and his lips parted when her quivering thumb rubbed over one of his nipples. 

She’d make him forget about it, distract him, and then he’d indulge them both, and this hot, monstrous thing writhing beneath her skin would be set free.

He grabbed her hands, gently pinned them by her head. Both legs freed, she wrapped them around him, arched and rubbed on him. But he still had his pants separating them and she wanted to cry. 

But his hips lunged forward, and she was completely pinned to the couch beneath him. 

“Why do you resist so much?” he whispered, lips against her cheek. “It’s a simple request.”

Her cheeks burned brightly, and she tried to turn her head and kiss him, but then he rolled his hips, just a little, just enough to _tease her_ , and she gasped lewdly against his cheek. 

“C’mon, say it,” he groaned. “Just once, that’s all I’m asking.” 

_It’s embarrassing_ , she wanted to say, but her breath was hitching and catching as he continued his slow grind against her. His grip on her wrists shifted, and she prepared herself to latch onto him when his hands moved, but then his fingers were intertwining with hers, and he squeezed just a little, gentle, tender, and her heart stuttered in her chest. 

“Just once, and you’ll get what you want,” he almost _whimpered_ against her cheek. “I’ll fuck you just how you want me to.”

But _saying it_ felt like losing -- losing their game but also something else, somehow, she was losing _something_ , and the fact that she _yearned_ for it as much as he did made anxiety flutter in her stomach.

Her lips parted wider, and she squeezed her eyes shut. She tightened her fingers around his hand. He was rubbing against her, and it was so good, but it wasn’t enough. 

_It wasn’t enough_. 

The first vowel caught in her throat, and she gulped hard, tongued her dry lips, and tried again.

And when it came out, it was a broken, mewling whimper. “ _A-Atem_.”

He gasped, then moaned, lurching against her and making her cry out, and then he was kissing her, hot and consuming, and he released her hands. Her arms were immediately around his shoulders, one hand ducking into his wild hair, the other clawing just enough at the back of his neck. 

And he shifted, and the sound of his zipper whined between them, and he was shoving his pants down. She was clinging, wrapped around him, and panting and desperate for him. His bare skin was touching hers and she mewled _“Yes!”_ against his lips, and his heat soothed her ache when he filled her, hot and tight.

“ _Atem!_ ” she cried again, overwhelmed by the feel of him after all of this teasing. 

A groan, broken and ragged with desire, and his hot hands tugged her up on a short, tight thrust. “Say it again,” he growled, brows twisting with pleasure as he forced his eyes to stay open and _stare_ at her.

“Atem,” she said, strained in her throat. He was rolling into her, slow and sensual but somehow still with that thrilling edge. It was a perfect pace -- any more and it would have been too much for her sensitized body. 

“Oh god,” he croaked, shuddering and shivering, even as he pumped into her. 

Her weak, quivering legs still pushed and pulled at him, her body rocking and arching to meet him motion-for-motion. 

His head whipped back, and he moaned, and it was wavering and broken, and he was meeting her gaze again. 

That red-violet fire in those irises was no longer that of the sunset. It was bright and dark and burning, like something crashing through the night from the heavens above. She saw her world going down in flames in his eyes. 

“A-Atem…”

The couch was creaking.

“Atem!”

He was panting and writhing. A bead of sweat trickled down his chest, raced over inked runes. 

“ _Atem! Yes, yes, yes._ ”

And it was flashing before her, behind her eyelids, white and red and black, running together like flames.

“ _Atem…”_

Her pulse was throbbing in her fingers and her toes and her heart was in those passionate eyes that looked like they were about to cry tears of pleasure.

And she was choking with it, but still, it rang out, breathy and blissful. 

“ _A-Atem…_ ”

* * *

The events raced through her mind like a broken record. Over and over. It’d been addictive on her tongue. It was something that she’d only said when she was alone and pleasing herself -- _Atem_ \-- like a dark, sinful secret that she hid from the world. And now he wrung it from her like a musician wrung notes from a piano.

Objectively, she knew it _shouldn’t_ have been such a big deal to her, but it _was._ Professionally, they were competitors. The consequences of anyone else finding out about their little… affair could be potentially career-ending -- more for her than for him (if anything, their peers would _applaud him_ for bedding her). She’d fought hard to get what little respect others gave her now, and she knew it would all go down the drain if any of this came to light. A scandal of this kind was something she absolutely could not afford.

She thought it would have been no problem keeping the distance between them, and she’d deluded herself even as they saw each other more and more frequently, until she couldn’t go longer than a few days without him, without touching him, seeing him, waking up next to him. Even as what once were sexual rendezvous became quiet dinners and games of chess and cards with sex as the finale.

Even when Mokuba said, “Wow, I don't know what it is, but you’ve been a lot happier lately and it’s kind of weird.” And she’d mentally attributed it to the stress relief sex brought.

But now she knew, now she saw it written all over the walls.

She was never going to be able to keep her distance from Atem Sennen. Not since that first phone call, not since the first time she met him in person.

It was magnetic, irresistible… this… this _thing_ they had between them.

It was frightening. 

_It was dangerous._

It wasn’t supposed to be permanent. _It can’t be permanent._

But the thought of stopping this made her chest tight, made her breathless, made her eyes sting, and she’d choke down on sobs.

So she coped. And she adopted a new delusion.

Atem Sennen would tire of her, and it was only a matter of time before he left her behind.

It was only a matter of time before Seto would be all alone again.

But she wasn't going to let him go without one hell of a fucking fight.

* * *

Her head lolled back, and she gasped his name. Her elbows trembled and then buckled but they caught her. Atem groaned where we was standing between her legs at the edge of the mattress.

They were jolting and fluttering, and then he was leaning forward and lapping lewdly at her breast as they rode the last of it out. He collapsed against her, cheek on her sternum, arms wrapping around her, and she flopped back against the mattress. She stroked her fingers through his hair -- thick and now damp with sweat -- and her lips tilted up when he purred contentedly between panting breaths.

It was well past midnight. The next few weeks were going to be incredibly busy for the both of them -- business functions that they absolutely could not afford to cancel, no matter how much they wished they could -- so they’d both taken the day off to spend with one another; they didn’t know the next time they could meet in private.

So the day had been spent in bed, touching each other, sometimes innocently, sometimes not, and spent eating and feeding each other and making a mess -- because of course it turned into some sort of battle between the two of them. 

But they were wearing thin, and sleep was on the horizon.

Seto could already feel the heaviness of her eyelids, and she struggled to keep them open. 

“I don’t know how I’m going to deal with it,” Atem muttered, and then a hitching sigh. Seto traced the outline of the raptor on his shoulder, her pale finger edging along black ink feathers and bronzed skin. “It’s been a long time since we’ve met each other in a purely professional capacity, and I’m used to being able to get my hands all over you.”

She blinked, slow, heavy, and something nebulous was forming in her fatigued thoughts. Vague ideas, for now, but even so they made her eyes narrow with calculation and her heart tick faster with anticipation. She breathed out slowly, twirled one of his blond bangs around her finger. He leaned forward to kiss her hand, and she swiped a thumb gently across his lips. “It’s much the same for me.”

She could feel his grin under her fingers. “I’m as irresistible to you as you are to me, hm?” he husked.

Her cheeks flushed hotter. He had no idea. 

“Mm,” he hummed when she didn’t respond, and he kissed her fingers again. “I’m going to take your silence as a begrudging ‘yes’.” He pressed his lips to her palm. “Good.”

And they tried to stay awake longer, but soon they were curled up on the bed, asleep in each other’s arms.

* * *

They tried to stretch out their morning as much as they could, but it wasn’t long before they had to part ways. 

A passionate kiss, intense enough to make her knees wobble, and then a short, chaste peck. His eyes stared deeply into her own. “I’ll see you soon,” he murmured, and then he left, and she was alone in the hotel room that had been their own reality for the past twenty-four hours.

Those ideas swirled in her head. They were still vague, insubstantial things, but she wanted to dwell on them more. 

Perhaps they would suit her cause.

* * *

She stared at the report, and her fingers tightened around her tablet. Her teeth gritted hard, and she bit down on her growl.

It was a graph of stock value for the top five technological companies for the past quarter.

She glared at the last blue dot, the dot that represented KaibaCorp.

It was just below the yellow dot label “M.E.I.”.

“That bastard,” she hissed, and though the urge to fucking throw the damn tablet was raging through her, she managed to toss it onto her desk instead. “That fucking bastard.”

 _Why was she always losing to him?!_

When they played chess or cards, he always won. When they were locked together, panting and sweating and moaning, she always felt like she was losing little pieces of herself to him. And now the rat bastard had knocked her from her throne and sat on it himself. _That bastard._

She pressed her hands to her face, hot with rage. 

He needed to lose something, too. 

Her fists clenched tightly, knuckles white and fingers trembling.

Somehow, some way, Atem Sennen was going to lose to her.

* * *

It was another convention, but this one longer. The other had only been a brief thing comparatively. This one was four days long, though Kaiba’s plans were only to attend three of those four days.

Keynote presentations, exhibitions of technology, other demonstrations, and a banquet or two along with a charity ball. Before, Seto Kaiba _loathed_ attending the banquets and the charity balls -- social interaction was simply not her favorite, nor was it her strong suit.

She looked at the garment bag, her lips set into a firm line.

Now, she would use them to her advantage.

He’d never know what hit him.

* * *

Her presentation was nothing short of perfect. She’d enthralled the audience, and she knew her exhibition the next day would be absolutely packed. She strutted off the stage, and she felt that gaze on her. She flicked her eyes to him.

Those red-violet eyes were affixed firmly to her ass, to her legs, where her pale calves were bared by her tight white pencil skirt and accented by her pale wedges. Watching him in her peripheral vision, she swept some of her hair over the shoulder of her white blazer. The first two buttons of her cobalt blue shirt were undone, and she felt her little dragon charm necklace thump gently against the hollow of her throat with each sauntering step she took. 

His lips parted slightly, and when the tall, dark-skinned man at his side nudged him, his head snapped back over.

Kaiba smirked the whole way to her seat.

* * *

Unfortunately, at the banquet that night, they sat all the way across the room from one another. She bit back her childish pout. There was not much she could do about it -- the seating was once again assigned, and it wasn’t as if she could ask someone to change it. That would be far too conspicuous, and she in no way wanted to cause a scene. 

Instead, she sat next to Maximillion Pegasus, and she contemplated suicide the entire time.

“I must say, Kaiba-darling, something seems different about you,” he said, surprisingly in a low tone, for only the two of them to hear.

Kaiba arched an eyebrow at him.

He did that strange giggle of his. “I mean, you are simply _bursting at the seams_ with confidence.”

She scoffed. “I’m always confident.”

He shook his head, “Not _this_ kind of confident. A real late bloomer, you.”

“What the hell are you going on about?” she grumbled, stabbing her fork into her food.

“Why, I mean you have the aura of a total _femme fatale_ , my dear. You are _oozing_ sexuality. It’s quite unexpected.” That titter. “Seems the men here can’t keep their eyes off of you.”

She rolled her eyes at him, but deep inside she hummed with satisfaction. Good, good. Then maybe that Atem Sennen would get a taste of his own medicine. Her attention was torn from her meal when her phone buzzed. Discreetly, she checked around the table. Everyone was, for the most part, involved in their own conversations. She tugged her cell from the breast pocket of her blazer. 

_‘That skirt is going to drive me mad.’_

Her lips curled with a smirk. Glancing around, she quickly typed back. 

_‘You can’t even see me right now.’_

The reply was near instantaneous.

_‘Perhaps not, but I KNOW you’re wearing it. I know your tight ass is looking like that and I can’t touch it.’_

Heat blossomed on her cheeks, but she quickly typed back.

_‘Get over it. I can wear it for you another time.’_

The phone went back into her pocket and she continued eating as if nothing had happened, even though her phone buzzed several times in a row.

She was so incredibly satisfied with herself. It was already working.

* * *

The banquet attendees were dispersing -- many of them at a tilted stagger after imbibing too much wine -- and Kaiba quietly excused herself. Thankfully, the banquet was being held at the hotel were all of their rooms had been booked by convention organizers, so she could retire straight to her room for the night.

She caught sight of him as she walked out.

One of his signature fitted black suits. She bit down a hum of pleasure at seeing his firm ass in those fitted pants.

And he thought _her_ ass was distracting…

He was talking to a tall, buxom woman with long, black hair that gleamed like silk in the chandelier lights.

Vivian Wong.

Kaiba bit down on her growl. _That_ tittering wench. She had no place here -- she was an actress, model, and martial artist, and she had no place at a tech convention. No doubt she was here as a bauble on some man’s arm, or she had piggybacked on her father’s affluence to attend.

She seemed to be eagerly chattering at Atem, who seemed to be listening only for the sake of politeness. He caught sight of Kaiba, those red-violet eyes flashing to her briefly, and then he shook his head and was stepping back to excuse himself. Long fingers, tipped with gaudy acrylic nails, caught at his arm. 

Wong was practically throwing herself at him, but he gently plucked her hands off of him and turned away.

Kaiba smirked and sauntered on her way, just slow enough for Atem to catch up if he so desired.

It was out in the hallway that she heard his deep voice rumble next to her, “Ms. Kaiba.”

“Sennen,” she replied, thick with amusement. “You have quite the admirer.” She glanced over to him. 

He rolled his eyes, stroked a hand through his hair as he sighed. His shoulders shifted deliciously under black. Mm. “Oh, that.”

“She’s a beautiful woman,” Kaiba continued, teasingly. “I’m sure you’re missing out.” Teasingly, though somewhere inside her she feared it. Vivian was beautiful and eager, not cold and rough like Kaiba.

“Oh, she’s not my type,” Atem murmured, eyes flashing darkly, and that predatory expression was on his face. 

“What’s your type then, Sennen?” she asked, to continue the joke and to truly learn.

A purring chuckle, and she thought of the rumbling growl of a big cat. “Long, brown hair. Tall. Demanding, confident. Self-sufficient.” He nudged her with his elbow. “It doesn’t hurt if she’s the CEO of a massive tech company.” That elbow lingered against her arm a moment, and she looked back at him. A stoic mask was perched on his handsome face, but she saw that dark desire burning within him. Her gut clenched, and her knees threatened to wobble. They had been talking quietly, and his next words came out even lower. “Can I interest you in a game of cards in my suite tonight?” _That voice of his_. She knew that tone, memorized it from when his hand was slick and wet between her thighs and his lips were at her ear and he murmured the filthiest things to her. 

So, _so_ badly she wanted to say _yes_ ; the yearning was coursing through her blood and making her head light and her fingertips tingle. But they’d been without each other for just over two weeks -- though that gap had been common months ago, it was _agony_ now -- and she knew that if she went with him, they would fuck the night away and she’d be exhausted come morning.

“I’ll have to decline,” she replied back, quiet and breathy. “I’ll need my rest for my exhibition tomorrow.”

He nodded, but she saw that white-hot flash of frustration and disappointment in his eyes. A twisted sense of satisfaction bubbled up in her chest. “I understand. Perhaps another night?”

She hummed, and a slick smirk crawled onto her lips. “Perhaps.”

* * *

The exhibition went swimmingly, just as Kaiba expected. The coronary bypass simulation ran perfectly, as did the other VR demonstrations she presented. Atem’s came next, and to any who weren’t interested in the practical applications of chaos theory mathematics, it was most certainly boring and dry, but Kaiba found it riveting. Science, as humans know it, would never be able to perfectly predict the weather, but the software M.E.I. was developing would be the closest approximation yet. She mentally memorized notes and questions she would present to Atem later (if he would be willing to answer, since this project’s finer details could very well be top-secret). 

The applause was subdued, but he didn’t seem altogether too affected by it, and he returned to his seat. Audience members funneled in and out -- people simply attended the exhibitions that they found most interesting, though some people like Kaiba attended all of them to scope out competitors and their products. When all had settled and Kaiba could once again see Atem, her teeth gritted hard enough that her jaw ached. Vivian Wong was there, at his side, practically draping herself over him. 

He remained impassive, nudging her off, but she would touch his shoulder, his arm, his hand, and at one point she even petted his chest sensually.

Something dark and possessive welled up in her. Seeing those dainty hands on his body, seeing his unenthusiastic rejection, made her blood run hot with rage. She seethed beneath her skin. Atem was _hers_ to touch, _hers_ to fondle, and if she couldn’t do it in public, then neither should anyone else!

 _Why_ wasn’t he rejecting her more strongly? If any man treated Kaiba in a similar fashion, she would have slapped him -- no, _punched_ him. Right in the goddamn throat.

Was he… _was he enjoying it?_

It was frothing, roiling, boiling over. Her hands closed into trembling fists against her slacks. She wanted to roar and belch fire and burn that woman into a crisp. She hastily stood up and briskly stode away. It took every ounce of her control not to _storm_ through the room like a goddamn hurricane. She burst into the hallway, but it wasn’t enough. The air felt hot, or maybe it was just her, radiating fury and jealousy strong enough to make all the few people in the hallway give her a wide berth.

It wasn’t long before she found an empty conference room, and she slammed the door shut behind her and furiously paced the length of it. Before she knew it, she had her phone in her hand, and everything in her screamed at her for her to throw it, to vent her frustration. 

An angry growl rumbled in her throat, and she pressed a hand hard to her face.

That bastard. _That bastard._

Later on, she would dwell on her foolish behavior, but now, she was submerged in this hot wrath and only sinking deeper.

Her fingers shook and she didn’t even realize that she was unlocking her phone and pressing on a contact and slamming her thumb into the call button. 

It rang three times -- in retrospect, she was surprised he bothered to answer at all -- and then his low voice -- practically whispering, was rolling over the speaker. “Hello?” Her cognitively trained response to his voice was a pleasant one (she shivered and giddy warmth coiled low in her belly), and that only served to piss her off even more. _That bastard_.

“If you can _bear_ to detach yourself from that simpering _floozy_ , you’ll get your ass out here, Sennen,” she growled, and then she hung up and was back to furious pacing before she yanked the door open and, with a glare that would murder five times over if looks could kill, watched the hallway for his wandering figure. The wait didn’t cool her anger -- if anything, she was _marinating_ in it, fermenting it into something deep and dark and possessive.

She’d show him. 

She’d show him who he belonged to. 

_You’re mine, Atem Sennen._

And she saw that wild hair, that dark-clad frame, and she was just quick enough to snatch his arm as he walked by. Her nails were like talons curling into his bicep, and she all but hurled him into the room with her. She slammed the door shut and locked it.

He looked entirely surprised, fetched up against the long table that he had stumbled into. “K-Kaiba, what’s--”

But she had already pounced on him before he could finish his sentence. A rough kiss to his lips, her teeth and tongue flashing against him, and she hissed, “Shut up,” into his mouth. She clawed along his shoulder, down his arm, where that _bitch_ had touched him, as if Kaiba could eradicate any and all traces of _her_ from his body.

He was pressing back, just enough, hands finding her waist. “A-Are there cameras in here?” he managed around her ferocious kisses, which turned to bites down his jaw -- hard enough for him to feel but not hard enough to leave a mark, because she was in a jealous frenzy, but she wasn’t a complete fucking dunce. 

She whipped her head back, looked around. Nothing too obvious, but she didn’t have the patience to scrutinize more. She shoved him back against the table more, and he grunted, but she was down on her knees, trembling fingers tugging at his suit buttons and working at his belt buckle. 

“ _Kaiba_ ,” he gasped, hands dropping to settle on hers, but she darted forward, biting his hand, right on the meaty part by his thumb, and he whipped his hand back with a pained hiss.

“If it becomes a problem, I’ll take care of it,” she growled, and she got his belt free and popped the button on his slacks, and the zipper was quick to follow.

His hands were on the edge of the table, his knuckles white and pushing up into the skin as she tugged him free. “Wh-What’s gotten into you?” She glared sharply up at him. His lips were swollen and red, his pupils dilated, and he panted hotly as she touched him. “Not that I’m complaining.”

She didn’t waste any time, sinking onto him, hearing him choke on the sensation. She knew what he liked, knew how he liked her tongue and her hands and how to move. He was panting hotly, one hand over his mouth, the other clenching into her jacket. 

She met his gaze, saw the pleasure making his expression crumble, and her eyes narrowed, and she sucked harshly. His head kicked back and she saw his jaw strain on a silent cry. 

“J-Jesus,” he croaked, hips undulating just the slightest amount against her tongue. “Slow _down_.”

Kaiba growled, grabbed him by the hips and slammed him back against the table. No, she would do this at her own pace, even if it was too fast or too slow for him. He moaned, low and broken, and the dark, greedy thing in her thrummed with satisfaction.

 _Only me, Atem_.

“Y-You’re good, so good,” he bit out, and his hand tightened on her shoulder. He was panting loud, lewd, and she felt his whole body shiver in her clutches.

_Only I can make you this way._

Her knees and jaw ached, but she didn’t stop, kept going at her fast, hard pace; she was wholly determined to completely wreck him, make him _know_. 

_No one could ever make you feel as good as I do._

He was close, she could _tell_ , the sounds he was making, the way his body trembled with the building tension, and her hand slithered under the hem of his shirt, up, up, and she deftly twisted his nipple in tandem with a fierce suck. He arched and heaved in her arms. 

He always had such sensitive nipples. 

“ _Kaiba,_ ” he gritted, “Kaiba, I’m going to come,” he warned, _strained_ , and his hips managed to curl even against her tight grasp.

She slammed him back again, fingers teasing him, tongue thrashing, and she hollowed her cheeks. 

The way he was holding his voice back was making him twitch and spasm more, but those muffled, erotic grunts still managed to echo softly off of eggshell-white walls. She’d barely managed to swallow him down before she was standing, nails digging into his jaw as he panted, a little sweaty and flushed and disheveled. 

She pressed hard against those swollen lips, and he kissed her back breathily, his tongue darting out to taste her, taste _him_ , and she retracted only to bite him and lower a hand down where he was still wet and sensitive and she _squeezed_ him. His lips parted into a strained ‘o’, and she chuckled darkly.

“Don’t you fucking forget who you belong to, Atem,” she hissed, right into his ear, and she gave the lobe a hard suck before she was tearing away from him. 

He was utterly debauched, clothes disheveled and unbuttoned, lips red and almost bruised, bronzed skin shining with a flush and a thin sheen of sweat.

 _Delicious._ She should get a fucking picture of him like this.

_Only I get to see you like this._

“Kaiba,” he said, deep, low, dark, but she ignored him in favor of straightening out his clothes. Thankfully, his suit jacket covered where she had wrinkled his dress shirt. He said her name again, and when she didn’t respond, he grabbed her wrist. His hand was hot, sweating, and his fingers still shook, but his voice was firm. “What is this all about?”

She met his eyes firmly. “I don’t like it when other women touch my man.”

His eyebrows rose up, his eyes wide. “ _Your_ man?” the tone of his voice was decidedly incredulous.

Of course. _Of course._

She gritted her teeth, and warmth flooded her cheeks. Goddammit, she thought she’d take a chance and it immediately bit her in the ass. “Whatever,” she snapped, and she yanked herself out of his grasp. Embarrassed and _wounded_ , she explicitly felt every storming step to the door.

“Kaiba!” he called after her, but she already had the door open and stormed down the hallway. 

Fuck the damn exhibitions. Fuck this whole damn thing. Fuck it all to hell.

When she was sitting in the car, she ignored the burning tears that stung her eyes and her face.

* * *

She sat on a chair, glared at the mirror. She could see the garment bag hanging up in the closet in the reflection. Her jaws clenched hard, teeth grinding. 

It was pointless. The whole fucking thing was pointless. That fucking thing and… and the _other_ things. The bastard won the whole game and he didn’t care. 

\-- _He won Seto Kaiba and he didn’t fucking care --_

She _knew_ . She’d known from the beginning that she was just another willing body to fuck and she _knew_ he would eventually toss her to the side and the whole thing _still fucking blindsided her_.

So this whole thing was pointless. She glared at the garment bag, as if she could burn it to ashes with her gaze alone. _That thing_ was fucking pointless.

She took a long draw on her drink, felt it burn all the way down. 

But she’d never hear the fucking end of it if she didn’t come through like she promised. Fucking Pegasus. 

She’d still do it, and maybe then Atem Sennen would fucking realize that anyone would be lucky to be _her man_.

* * *

“Now, for the main event of our charity ball, the date auction!’ the emcee declared over the microphone. “These ladies are hot, single, and ready to mingle -- for tonight at least!” Laughter from the audience. “Proceeds will go to our charities for the evening, a variety of nonprofits reaching out to underprivileged children!”

Kaiba huffed and shifted. At least it was for a cause that she supported herself -- in fact, she donated large sums of money anonymously to several youth outreach programs every year. 

Even so, if someone told her years before that she would be a woman on display for a date auction, she would laugh in that person’s face and then stomp on their foot for good measure.

But here she was, strutting out onto the stage, heels clicking on the black polished floor, because Seto Kaiba never backed out of a commitment. 

Her cheeks were blistering hot under the bright white lights, and she hoped her face wasn’t as red as her dress. She _never_ wore dresses, much less ones like this -- scarlet and clinging and there was a slit on the right that climbed up to her hip and bared her long, pale leg and strappy red suede open-toed heel. Most of her hair was elegantly pinned up, but some pieces dangled down in gently-curled ringlets -- thank god for YouTube tutorials on how to properly curl hair. The feel of lipstick on her lips was entirely foreign, but she remembered the face that had looked back at her from the mirror -- pale skin and red lips that had made blue eyes seem almost ethereal in complement, and though it was all awkward and embarrassing at first, she realized what Pegasus had meant -- she felt empowered, fierce, a seductress in red. 

So, despite the heat of her cheeks, she strutted out with nothing less than unshakeable confidence. And they were lined up, a dozen or so of them, on the stage, Kaiba the last in line. She shot a sideways glance to the woman to her right. Vivian Wong. The bitch had been whining and bragging beforehand, so sure that the bids would go off the charts for her -- Kaiba was certain of that; Wong seemed like an easy lay, if someone plied her with enough compliments and promises of grandeur -- but Kaiba had immediately tuned her out when she went huffing about how _certain_ she was that the one to buy her hand for a dance would be none other than Atem Sennen.

Whatever. Fuck both of them. 

And the emcee moved up the line, one woman at a time. The bidding never breached more than half a million dollars -- these men liked to spend money on frivolous things, but it seemed that they weren’t willing to put so much into what amounted as a silly game. 

With the bright lights obscuring her vision, Kaiba couldn’t see the audience, but she could recognize their voices as they bid and -- much to Wong’s obvious displeasure -- her bid price kept rising but never did Atem Sennen speak up on her behalf. 

Kaiba grinned smugly to herself. He probably wasn’t even in attendance. A ball just didn’t seem to be his scene, charity or no. 

“And last but certainly not least, we have Seto Kaiba, CEO of KaibaCorp. She’s looking lovely tonight in her red dress. What do you say we start our bidding at fifty thousand, gentlemen?”

Kaiba resisted the urge to palm her face when she heard Pegasus wail “Seventy-five!” from somewhere in the audience. Meddling old man.

But as soon as that cut above the crowd, another barked “One hundred!”

“ _Two_ hundred!”

Pegasus, indignant, “ _Two-fifty!_ ”

“Three hundred!”

And Kaiba and the emcee stood in silent shock as several key men in the audience battled for Kaiba’s bid. It blasted past the half-million mark, climbed up and over Vivian Wong’s mark of seven hundred sixty thousand, and it was quickly approaching the one million mark. 

“ _One million!”_ a man hissed -- the struggle was becoming passionate and vehement, and a prickle of anxiety nipped at the back of Kaiba’s neck. 

This… this was starting to seem like a bad idea. 

“Like you have one million to spare!” another jabbed back. “One million and one!”

The sound of a chair dragging against the floor, palms slamming onto a table, and then a deep, proud voice rolled out like thunder. “ _Five million dollars!”_

And it cut through the din hot and sharp and left nothing but ringing silence in its wake -- even Kaiba’s heart in her chest had stilled as her brain reeled to catch up.

Atem Sennen had matched the bid five-fold. 

“Five million and one!” someone squawked, but it was quickly met with Atem’s sharp “Ten million!” spat out like a hiss.

There was a distinct murmur, and Atem spoke again, loud and ringing and noble and reprimanding, “I can and will go far higher if need be.”

\-- ten million dollars was chump change to the man in control of M.E.I. --

Kaiba’s breath was still frozen in her throat, hard and sharp, and she tried to push air around it with little success. 

“Ten million and one, anybody?” the emcee asked with awkward humor, and a few stiff laughs rippled from the audience. Kaiba’s vision distorted under the pressure of the hot white lights. “Ten million, going once, going twice…” He paused, but no other voices spoke up over the thick silence that had fallen over the entire room. For those few moments, all Kaiba could hear was her heart pounding away in her ears. “And _gone_ , to the gentleman in the back for ten million dollars!”

Her entire body felt stiff, yet the adrenaline rushing through her veins made it feel as though she was vibrating in place. 

Vaguely, she heard the emcee speaking again, but blood was pounding through her ear drums too quickly for her to make out the exact words. But the women were filing off the stage, down a small set of stairs to the winning bidders, and Kaiba was absolutely wrong when she thought her heart couldn’t pound any faster. 

Because there Atem was, last in line, his hands in his trouser pockets.

But she’d never seen those shoulders so tense, nor those eyes so heated, like one glance would singe her to ashes where she stood. Passion -- angry and righteous and _sexual_ \-- stewed within him, that much she could tell, and she knew she was not walking to her sensual panther; she was approaching a fierce lion, his pride riled and wounded.

She tried to gulp but her throat was too dry. 

It was only a matter of time before the other women and their new dates swept away and there Atem was, hands out of his pockets and his elbow crooked for her. Her palms were sweaty and her hands shook. She was close enough to _smell_ him, that scent that made her tremble and melt. 

Her hand curled into the bend of his arm, and she felt the tension rippling through him. 

She cleared her throat but her voice still rolled out wispy and choked, “Ten million is a bit much, wouldn’t you think?”

They were stepping away, back to Atem’s table. He made a noise low in his throat. “I wasn’t going to get involved at all.” Low and dark, and she thought about that first banquet, the first time they met in person, but even then he didn’t have this crackling intensity, like a storm on the horizon. 

Her breath was tight. He was brushing against her with each step. “But you did anyway.”

Another low noise. It sounded like a growl. Right in his chest, rumbling. “But I did anyway. I saw your face up there. You knew you bit off more than you could chew. These men were raring to have you on their arm tonight.” 

She parted her lips to speak, but his arm tensed, forearm and bicep squeezing her hand for a moment.

“It was a dangerous idea. These men despise you and you nearly gave them the bait.”

“Is that all you’re going to do tonight? Lecture me?” she hissed, nails curling and scratching against his jacket sleeve.

“You didn’t give me the chance to do it yesterday. After your…” A low growl vibrated in him. “ _Abrupt, unexplained_ departure, I seemed to have some difficulty contacting you.”

She grit her teeth as she flushed hotly. She’d blocked his number. He didn’t dare contact her personal cell from his professional number -- she’d long since established that boundary. 

“I know when I’m not wanted,” he muttered. “But I couldn’t stand the sight of your floundering up there as these men fought over you like feral dogs over scraps.”

“And I’m _so_ grateful for the help,” she ground back through clenched teeth, though her mind was tripping and jumbling over his words. 

_Unexplained? Knows when he’s not wanted?_

Son of a bitch. Damn her fucking impulsiveness.

“I wasn’t floundering,” she grumbled. “And thanks for comparing me to scraps. That always boosts a woman’s self-esteem.”

“That isn’t what I meant and you know it,” he snapped. “Deal with me for the banquet and you can go back to ignoring me, Kaiba.” 

And then she suddenly realized what that tension in his voice was -- _hurt._ It seems Atem’s pride wasn’t the only thing she’d wounded. The revelation had her swaying on her heeled feet, and she clasped his arm tighter. 

Her breath was tight and her ribs ached. “We need to talk. Privately.”

He growled again -- she could _feel_ the frustration seething beneath his skin -- but he deflated the slightest amount. “Finally, something we can agree on.”

And then, after an eternity, they arrived at his table, and he stiffly pulled out a chair for her. Her throat was too tight to protest as she carefully sank into the seat. The dress tugged and pulled in such a foreign manner against her body, and she cautiously arranged herself to avoid any malfunction. She glanced at the other people at the table. They stared at her, and she was too flustered to decode the meaning in their gazes. Surprise?

She looked away quickly, face hot. She was all too aware of the motions of Atem’s body as he sat down beside her. 

The speakers on stage cycled through speeches and toasts, but Seto was hardly paying any attention. She was shaking, from deep inside, her stomach a writhing snake tangled in its own coils. 

_She hurt Atem_.

As much as she had fantasized about wounding him before, actually accomplishing that achievement was another matter entirely.

_It made her nauseous._

She hurt him and _he didn’t even know why_.

Of course, it was just like her to take an innocuous question and convolute it into an entire problem. 

_“I don’t like it when other women touch my man.”_

_“_ **_Your_ ** _man?”_

Of course. Of course he would’ve asked it with incredulity. She’d shown little other interest in him than sex. Of course her possessiveness, her _jealousy_ , would’ve caught him off guard. 

Her thoughts froze in place, still like the figures in a wax museum.

 _Did_ she have any interest other than sex?

She resisted the urge to press her hands to her face as hard as she could.

 _Of course._

The hurt at just the _thought_ of him discarding her; the way she yearned to bask in his presence, in his fiery glow that warmed her in places that had been stagnant and cold for so long; the way she wanted him to kiss no one else, touch no one else, _hold_ no one else, embrace her like he did after he’d… he’d… _made love_ to her, when all should have been said and done but he held her in his arms anyway. The way her chest filled with light when he laughed so heartily, but so kindly at her staunchly sour demeanor; the way her eyes stung when he texted her reminders to eat lunch on busy days; the way her pulse fluttered in her wrists when he closed his eyes, basking as she stroked through his wild hair, and then opened them to stare at her with such depth and intensity that her breath caught in her throat. 

The way she _hated_ that they kept it a secret, _hated_ that she couldn’t handle her own hesitation at letting it out in the open so they could… so they could… _go on dates_. 

She wanted Atem to wine and dine her and _she_ wanted to wine and dine _Atem_ , to show him all her favorite places to eat, from that little sandwich shop just down the block from KaibaCorp headquarters to that high-class Italian restaurant that served the _best_ damn clam linguine. She wanted to go to the theater and _feel_ the arias of the operas with him, to walk in the park with his hands in hers.

 _She wanted Atem._

Every piece of him that he was willing to give, from the simple to the sublime, from his opinion on ice cream flavors to his thoughts on quantum theories, from his dearest childhood memories to his greatest aspirations for the future.

Her eyes, staring blankly down at the tablecloth, turned to him. He was pretending to pay attention to the stage, but tension had him stiff in his seat, and his eyes were glassy and drifting. The skin around his jaw and lips was tight. And then his eyes met hers, glittering and dusky like the sunset, and she froze in her seat. 

Whatever emotion was on her face, she didn’t bother to hide it. She let him see it, let him see _her_.

His expression softened, lips parting and the inner edges of his eyebrows drawing up. 

Her shaking hand set on the edge of his seat, by his thigh. His eyes stared at her palm as she turned it up, knuckles against the seat cushion, and she couldn’t read the emotions washed into the lines of his face. 

She’d understand if he looked away, ignored her silent request, or even if he slapped her hand away from him. In fact, she was prepared for it. She… she didn’t deserve to hold his hand.

She quietly sucked in her breath as he lowered his hand to hers… and tangled their fingers together, palm to palm. He looked back up to the stage, but he gently squeezed her hand in his. 

The lights swirled along the edges of her vision, and she dazedly stroked her thumb over his. She pulled their hands closer, and she saw him turn his head back to her in her peripheral vision. She rested them on the top of her thigh. It felt like the back of his hands, his defined knuckles, were going to burn through her dress.

Part of her hoped it would. She wanted to feel his skin on hers again. His arm shifted as he sighed quietly. She ghosted the pads of her fingers up and down the back of his hand, then in little circles. His skin was so warm, so soft. With each pass of her fingertips, she felt the tension drain from him. And then his thumb was stroking back, slow, almost like the motion was thoughtless. No, definitely thoughtless.

Her breath caught, and she tenderly squeezed his hand. A squeeze in response. The next swipe of his thumb was firmer, intentional. She sighed, tilting her head, looking down at their tangled hands. His dark skin against her nearly porcelain white. So different, but… so right. There, tangled together, pressed against one another. Blending and mixing but remaining distinct.

Finally, after so long, the boring speeches were over, the lights were coming back up. The staff seemed to glide over the floor, and they whisked away tables and chairs with that same swift grace. They were opening up a dance floor.

Her heart jumped back up to her throat. 

Dancing… with Atem…

His fingers disentangled from hers as gently as he had twined them. He stood, offered his elbow to her. Those dusky eyes stared down at her. She slowly, carefully rose from her seat. She fitted her hand in the crook of his elbow. His arm was much less tense this time.

"Are you asking me to dance, Atem?" She said quietly. 

"No," he replied, just as low. The band was tuning, bows sawing slowly across strings. "We are going to have that talk. _Before_ the night goes on."

"O-Okay." She averted her eyes, sheepish. 

She dreaded to tell him what had happened, _why_ it had happened. But it had to happen. 

"You…" he cleared his throat as they began their walk across the room. "... You look resplendent in that dress. Red suits you."

"I…" she breathed tightly. "It has been a very long time since I've worn a dress like this,” If ever. “It's… awkward."

"It's lovely," he replied. "You're beautiful, no matter what you wear or how you style your hair, but… this suits you." A low chuckle, that sibilant purr, quiet, not quite the full intensity she _knew_ he was capable of. “I have other compliments to give you, but I believe I should save them for after we have our discussion and have the luxury of privacy.”

But she _felt_ her skin prickle with goosebumps. She’d _known_ this dress was the right choice when she picked it out. She’d wanted him to _hunger_ for her. It seemed that even though they were… quarrelling, he still _desired_ her. She wanted him to want to touch her, to press close, every inch, for his hot hand to find its way to the dress’ slit to grasp at her thigh, for his harsh kisses to smear her lipstick and his hands to dig through her hair to let it down around her shoulders, just how he liked to. 

“I bought these shoes because they complement my calves,” she murmured, breathy.

“Your legs were gifted to you by Venus herself -- you have every right to want to show them off,” and that purr was growing into a growl, not angry but _sexual_. 

Dear god, she didn’t know if she could last through a discussion without _pouncing_ on him. She felt dizzy with emotional whiplash -- as unpredictable as always, Atem could flip the atmosphere with a flick of the wrist. 

And they crossed the room and into the hallway. 

“Are we leaving?” she asked quietly.

“No,” he replied. In this expensive hotel where the banquet was being hosted, there was a small art gallery, currently empty, and Atem gently led her into it. He drew away from her and looked both ways down the hallway before closing the door behind them. “I’m sure this place has hidden cameras, but at least we are away from the… prying eyes and ears of our peers.”

She nodded, fingers fidgeting with the slit on her dress. 

Hidden cameras… he chose this on purpose. 

But she wasn’t sure if he was trying to keep her from pouncing on him, or if he was trying to keep _himself_ from pouncing on _her_. 

She stared at a painting on the wall. Grapes, gleaming on a silver platter. They, admittedly, looked delicious.

“What happened, Kaiba?” He asked, stepping close, his fingers lightly touching her chin to turn her gaze back to him. Those beautiful eyes of his were bright with concern. “I can’t read your mind. You need to tell me if something I do bothers you.” Then his warm palms cupped her cheeks. “What did I do wrong?”

She lowered her eyes, stared at the knot of his tie, felt her eyelashes brush against his thumbs. “It… it wasn’t you.”

“Then what was it?” he asked, voice low as a whisper, scraped raw. “Kaiba, look at me.”

She did. With these bright lights and how close he was, she could see the individual red and purple streaks blossoming around his irises. “It was me. At first, I was jealous and angry at you.” His lips part, his eyebrows lifting up, and Kaiba continued. “You… you were _letting_ Wong put her hands all over you.” 

Atem shook his head slowly. “I didn’t want to cause a scene -- she’s known for her vindictive responses to being denied --”

“I _know_ ,” she breathed, grabbing his wrists but keeping his hands against her face. “I know. It wasn’t just that. She -- _she_ gets to touch you in public, but I--” she took a shaky breath. “I _can’t_.”

“Oh, Kaiba…” He stroked his thumbs over her cheekbones.

She leaned further into his touch, warm and electric. “I wanted to claim you. In the only way I can.” A low whisper, raw, “The only way I know how.” Panting a little, her heart pounding in her chest. “And, and I called you _my_ man, and you said --”

“‘ _Your_ man’...” he repeated, understanding dawning in his eyes. “I didn’t mean… I didn’t mean --”

“I know,” she said again. “I know that now. I was impulsive. I’m _always_ impulsive. I was already angry and jealous and… and hurt, and I didn’t listen when you tried to stop me from leaving.”

He lowered his hands, and her stomach twisted. But he touched along her arms, down to tangle their fingers together. “We’ve been leaving too many things to stew, too many things unsaid.” He smiled, a small, private smile, and he lifted her knuckles up to his lips to place a gentle kiss. Those eyes stared at her from over the back of her hand. They were bright, but still, deep within they smoldered with a dark and hungry possessiveness, the same that she felt curling and twisting in her own veins. “I want you, Kaiba. More than just for the sex. I always have.” He turned his head just slightly, turned her hand just so to brush her knuckles along his cheek. “You’ve enthralled me since the beginning.” And those eyes were becoming half-lidded. “It would elate me to be _your man_ .” Another kiss to her hand, this time with mouthing lips and the slightest swipe of his tongue -- a teasing flash of teeth. “Even in an… _official, public_ capacity, when and if you are ready for such a thing.”

She flicked her eyes to the corners of the room, where cameras were no doubt watching their every move. She stepped close to him, hands touching his stomach and sliding up, smoothing along his suit, along the taut body underneath, over the lapels, until she was slipping her arms around his shoulders. She could feel his breath on her face, watched his eyes drop to her lips. “I… might need some time for that,” she murmured, tracing her fingertips on the back of his neck. She could _feel_ the shiver that wracked his body. “To go that far, but…” Their lips were so close, that each syllable of hers brushed her against him like a kiss. “... I want you to be _my_ man.” She tilted her head just slightly. Their noses skimmed across one another as he moved in kind, entranced like a charmed snake. “I want to be _your_ woman.”

His breath was getting faster, and he licked his lips, his tongue skimming over her flesh. “Those words are sweet music to my ears, Kaiba.”

She hummed as his hands settled on her waist and grasped her gently. “Seto,” she gasped, light and panting.

He groaned, and it vibrated through her whole body. “ _Seto_.” He shifted, just a little, just enough to press a hot kiss to her jaw. “What about now? What about the cameras?”

“They’ve probably seen worse,” she huffed, tipping her chin up in invitation. He eagerly accepted it. “And they are definitely more concerned about people stealing these paintings than they are about a random couple necking.” Her breath rattled from her lungs, sweltering and vicious, when that devilish tongue of his rolled out to drag up her throat. Hot, his mouth was so hot, so were his hands, branding her where they were squeezing up her waist. 

“Seto,” he growled, teeth bared against her jaw, then her ear. His whole body was plastered against hers. It was so delicious -- she’d _missed_ this. “This dress had me thinking the most indecent things since the moment I saw you in it,” came the hiss. 

“I g-guess we are moving on to the compliments, then, aren’t we?” A _whimper_ curled out of her throat when he nipped and lapped at her earlobe.

“ _Yes_ .” His grip was no longer at her waist, but at her _ass_ , squeezing and tugging her closer, closer, they couldn’t get any closer without tearing their clothes off and fucking right there in the art gallery. “I want to hike it up and pull your legs over my shoulders and fuck you until we howl like animals.” 

She’d thought about that too, her panties torn and thrown to the side, pinned against some wall by her sexy black panther as he tore her to pieces while she was still fully clothed. Hungry and fast and crazed, trying to bite back cries but unable to because it was always _that damn good_. 

“I want to kiss the red off your lips, kiss and bite until you’re _swollen_ ,” he continued, tilting his head again to breathe hotly against her lips and swiping his tongue across them. “I want to make a mess of your perfect hair, want to tug and _yank_ .” Another demanding squeeze to her ass, and she arched in his arms. “Goddamn, I just want to make a mess of _you_ . You look so composed and pretty and put-together, but _I know_ . _I know_ what you look and sound like when you’re crying with pleasure, crying for _more_.” His breath heaved across her skin in hot gusts. “I always want to give you more, Seto.”

Her whimper lodged in her throat, and her nails dug in at the back of his neck. “ _Atem_ , we should l-leave. _Before_ we really start fucking in here.”

“No dance?” Whispered against her skin, damp with his breath and his lips. 

Her laugh was a choked but wry sound. “I think we both have better things to spend our time on than _dancing_ , Atem.”

“True.” It felt like physical pain when he drew away from her. But his hand caught hers, tangled their fingers together. “Let’s leave. Your suite or mine?”

“Mine,” she blurted, breathless, nearly struggling to stand on her own without Atem clinging to her. Her knees were jelly. _Goddamn_ , Atem was like hospital-grade narcotics.

Atem chuckled, perhaps at her hastiness or at the way she wobbled on her feet, or perhaps at both, but he squeezed her hand. “It sounds like a plan to me.”

* * *

Holding hands in the hotel elevator became some sort of erotic foreplay, fingers stroking and tracing and breaths panting and catching. The fuse was burning down too quickly -- the fire catching like on a field of drought-ravaged grass. The heat was mounting to an unbearable fever pitch, and they’d hardly touched each other. It baffled her -- an embrace and relatively tame necking and some dirty talk from Atem already had her wound up like a clockwork bomb that just couldn’t wait to go off.

She realized suddenly that this was the first time they walked to a room _together._

And every step there felt like foreplay, felt like a tease, like a brush of lips and tongue. The anticipation was building faster than ever, and already her belly and inner thighs were aflame with impatient desire for him. 

With this irresistible, insatiable pull between them, she would have to wait for her other plans -- she needed him _as soon as possible._

So when she managed to fumble her door open with trembling hands, they’d barely managed to kick their shoes off before they were touching, lips locking and arms and legs twining. 

“ _Atem_ ,” she was already gasping, arching in his arms, digging her fingers through that wild hair of his. And she barely reacted when she was pressed roughly to the wall -- he was biting down her throat, painting her with his lips and teeth and tongue. A hot hand curled hard into her outer thigh and yanked her leg through the slit in the dress to hike her knee around his hip. 

“Seto,” he growled back, _devouring_ her shoulder, her collarbone. 

And then he was pulling himself back, just enough for both of them to scrabble at the buttons on his suit jacket. Huffing breaths, the shuffling of fabric, but neither of them could hear much more than their hearts pounding in their ears as Atem finally shrugged the jacket off. It was forgotten before it even touched the ground. 

She yanked him forward by his tie, bit at his lips as he worked at the buttons on his vest next. His hips twitched up against her in hungry, needy little movements, that had her veins throbbing hot and wanting. “You wear too much,” she groaned, clawing the vest off as soon as it was loose enough to do so. 

“Then help me undress faster,” he growled. “I should’ve been fucking you by now.”

“You’re so damn right,” she breathed, “but we’re leaving the tie on.”

“Your wish is my command,” and they were both so hasty to unbutton his shirt that a button popped off -- Seto surmised perhaps that it was her fault but she was too damn frenzied to care at this point, and from how Atem was acting, the feeling was deliciously mutual. 

The shirt, the belt, his trousers and underwear dropped to the ground. 

“As much as I want to enjoy the absolute _vision_ you make in this dress a little longer,” he growled, naked and inked and pinning her to the wall still, “and _as much_ as I want to screw you senseless while you’re wearing it, I’m going to strip you.” The zipper hissed down the teeth, and the material loosened around her body. His lip was curled in the slightest snarl, his mouth open just so as he watched the material sag down her body. "You can always wear it for me again."

She arched, felt the dress slip past her breasts to catch on her waist. He moaned, long and low in her ear, made her tremble and shiver and gasp, and his hot hands smoothed down her naked sides to push the dress off her hips. It slithered down her legs and pooled at her feet. She was nearly naked before him.

Nearly.

He drew back and growled again, his fingers hooking into the waistband of her panties. 

" _This_ ," he snapped the band against her hip, "is not your usual fare."

Heat nipped at her cheeks. It was true, her undergarments were generally utilitarian in nature… but to see the way he hungrily eyed her made her glad she stepped out of her comfort zone. 

"There's…" she gulped hard, tried to catch her breath and wet her dry mouth, "... There's more where that came from."

He bit at her neck, sensual and teasing but feverish. He panted hotly against her flesh. "Are you saying some day you'll play dress-up for me?"

"Yeah," she whimpered, "I'll let you fuck me in all your favorite outfits of mine."

He chuckled darkly. "It will take a very long time to work through them all." He purred, undulated against her hips. She could _feel_ him through her panties, butting into her and making her gasp. “We’ll have to set aside an entire week for it.”

“ _Yes_ , I’ll pen it into my schedule,” she panted, bucking back, grinding them together. He hissed at the rough friction of her underwear. 

His hot hands slipped under lace to grip hungrily at her ass, and she hooked her leg around him and she moaned at the change in angle. _Right there_ , he was pressing into her, tapping and sliding, over and over, right where it made her thighs jump. She was worked up and _aching_ for him, and she realized as she scratched at his back that he was about to make her come without even touching her directly. 

“I paid ten million dollars to make sure no other man lays a hand on you, and you think _you_ are possessive,” he snarled. 

“No one could touch me like you do,” she mewled. 

And his lips mouthed, rapacious, at her collarbone and sucked where she was most sensitive there, and she could only moan breathily as he kept butting against her and stoking the fire raging within her.

“You’re gonna come just like this, aren’t you?” he hissed, and his teeth sank into the curve of her neck and shoulder. 

“Yes, _yes_ , Atem, _yes_!” And that blaze built to an unbearable roar, and she knew distantly that she was wailing and bucking and clawing at his inked ribs. It was rushing through her thighs, making her buck, making her head dig into the wall as she arched harshly. 

“Incredible, absolutely incredible.” The words echoed to her ear as if through water, perhaps because of the blood roaring through her eardrums. 

He grinded against her, helped her ride it out, kept pressing her until she was shuddering with sensitivity. 

"Good?" He growled, slowing to a stop against her.

She was still panting, heavy and mewling, but she nuzzled for a kiss anyways. One hand tangled in his hair, the other tugging at the tie that adorned his otherwise naked body. His lips, his breath, his tongue stroking along hers. 

"Wonderful," she panted, licking at his lower lip. 

A purring chuckle, his head tilting as he withdrew from their kiss. Their noses brushed. A low, sizzling heat smoldered in his eyes. Everything in her tightened on instinct, a hot aftershock of her orgasm. She whimpered.

What a bastard. A devilishly sexy _bastard_.

She tightened her fist around his tie, pushed her knuckles against his sternum to shove him away but keep him leashed. "I do believe there is a perfectly good bed for me to push you onto in here somewhere." 

"Mm, sounds promising," but he leaned close again, his elbow propped on the wall by her head. He smirked an absolutely _fiendish_ smirk. "What do you plan on doing with me once we're there?"

She arched, her bare chest pressing against his. His entire body was searing hot. She grinned mere centimeters away from his lips. "I guess you'll have to wait to find out."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There was supposed to be more. But it got longer. And longer.  
> And longer. And the closer I got to 15,000 words, the more I realized that the parts I wanted to elucidate on would either never exist… or that I can explore them when and if I do Atem’s POV for this entire escapade. What do you guys think, eh, eh? *vigorous elbow nudges*


End file.
